Background
In the late 1980s, Matrix Churchill, a British (Coventry) aerospace quality machine tools manufacturer, that had been bought by the Iraqi government, and was exporting machines used in weapons manufacture to Iraq. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority, its products later found in Iraq, were among the highest quality of their kind in the world. They were 'dual use' machines that 'could' be used to manufacture weapons parts. Such exports are subject to government control, and Matrix Churchill had the appropriate government permissions, following a 1988 relaxation of export controls. Crucially, however, this relaxation had not been announced to parliament - indeed, when asked in parliament whether controls had been relaxed, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry replied incorrectly that they had not.
Matrix Churchill was contacted by HM Customs and Excise, under suspicion of exporting arms components to Iraq without permission. It had this permission but this was denied by the government, in line with the most recently announced policy on the matter. Matrix Churchill's directors were therefore prosecuted in 1991 by Customs and Excise for breaching export controls.
The trial did not go well for the government - public interest immunity certificates obtained by the government to suppress some critical evidence (supposedly on grounds of national security) were quickly overturned by the trial judge, forcing the documents to be handed over to the defence. The trial eventually collapsed when former minister Alan Clark admitted he had been 'economical with the actualité' in answer to parliamentary questions over export licenses to Iraq.
Read more about this topic: Scott Report
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)