Commons security run by 'terrorist suspect'

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/07/30/stinwenws

July 30, 2000

A SUDANESE businessman who has been linked by the American CIA to the
world's most wanted terrorist is the leading shareholder in a company
that provides security systems to the Houses of Parliament.  Salah
Idris, 48, whose pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was flattened by
American cruise missiles after it was linked to Osama Bin Laden, the
Saudi terrorist, owns 25% of IES, a company specialising in
high-technology surveillance and security management.

The Kent-based firm not only provides advanced digital video cameras
to monitor public areas at Westminster but has also installed
surveillance equipment at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Its
digital playback consoles are used by New Scotland Yard. The firm also
provides security systems for blue-chip companies including British
Airways, Texaco and Dixons.

Idris has strongly denied any links with Bin Laden, suspected of
organising the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998, in which more than 200 people were killed.

Idris, a multimillionaire, bought his shares in IES from a man who was
at the centre of the "arms-to-Iraq" affair.

Last week Idris launched a $50m (31m) lawsuit in London against the
American government over the 1998 attack on his pharmaceutical plant
in Khartoum just after he had bought it for 11m.

The Americans said it was producing chemicals for use in Iraq's
chemical warfare programme - an allegation strongly denied by Idris.

Last week a spokesman for the CIA declined to comment about Idris
because of the lawsuit, but said: "We have maintained and continue to
maintain that the plant was linked to Bin Laden."

MI5 refused to say whether Idris had been vetted over parliament's
security.

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