LONDON - British MP and anti-Iraq war campaigner George Galloway is to face a fresh investigation into the funding of his campaign against UN sanctions in Iraq, a report said on Thursday. The Daily Telegraph said the Charity Commission, the regulatory body for not-for-profit organisations in England and Wales, had launched another probe into the now wound-up Mariam Appeal created by the former Labour MP in 1998.The commission concluded last year that no funds for the appeal, which provided medical aid to Iraqi civilians, had been misused or acquired from improper sources. But its head of legal services said in May the commission would look at new information from a US Senate sub-committee, which has accused Galloway of taking illegal kickbacks from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
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A spokesman for Galloway was quoted by the Telegraph as saying the fresh investigation was âa complete waste of timeâ and had been launched at Washingtonâs behest. The Mariam Appeal had been âentirely legitimateâ, as were all donations, the spokesman told the newspaper, insisting that the Charity Commission would find nothing new.