Money man says senator in the clear

By Malcolm Brown
March 19, 2005

The man at the centre of the Lightfoot affair, Simko Halmet, said yesterday that he had been totally responsible for the donation of $US20,000 ($25,300) in Iraq and that the West Australian Liberal senator Ross Lightfoot had nothing to do with it.

Mr Halmet, who describes himself as the Australian representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a representative of the Kurdish Regional Government in Australia, said there had been no currency smuggling involved and he believed that the donation had breached no rules.

Woodside Petroleum, while reviewing its investment in northern Iraq last July, had decided to make a donation to a hospital in the town of Halabja, Mr Halmet said.

"They did not have the money just then, so they decided to give it to me, on the grounds that I was the Kurdistan representative in Australia," he said.

"In Iraq there is no banking system, no internet banking and no transfer facilities. The only way to get money into the country is to take it by hand."

Mr Halmet said that Woodside Petroleum subsidiary Woodside Energy had given him $US20,000 in Australia, which he had put into a Kurdistan bank account within the Australian banking system. "I was waiting for the next opportunity to take money into Iraq," he said.

"That came when Senator Lightfoot decided to go back in late January to be part of the general election."

Mr Halmet said getting into Iraq was not a simple matter and it had been decided to enter across the Turkish border. He had taken $US5600 in cash from the $US20,000 given to him by Woodside. He put the money in his pocket, which anyone carrying travel expenses would do.

"I had to worry about carrying a very large amount of money, especially when I was travelling with a senator," he said.

He said he made "a couple of phone calls" to relatives in Kurdish Iraq, who were very well-off financially, and they had agreed to lend him the balance to make up the $US20,000.

He and Senator Lightfoot had travelled by taxi to the Turkish-Iraqi border, where they were met by members of the Iraqi National Guard, who became their bodyguards.

Once in Iraq, he had approached members of his family, including his brother-in-law, Mohammed Ali Kadr, who had come good with the money.

He had then held a meeting with Kurdish officials, at which Senator Lightfoot was present, and he had handed over the money to the Minister for Health. At no stage had Senator Lightfoot been aware of what he was doing and he had not handled any of the money.

Mr Halmet said the Iraqi National Guardsmen who gave them protection were all armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols.

He had not seen Senator Lightfoot with a pistol or another weapon, except on one occasion when Senator Lightfoot had borrowed an AK-47 to pose for a photograph.

Mr Halmet said the total amount of money lent by his relatives was $US16,000 and he had undertaken to get that back to them in small amounts, carried by people visiting Iraq.

Some of that money had already been returned and some was still owing, Mr Halmet said.


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