Stop hounding Vaz, Cook tells media

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, FEB. 5. After weeks of battering over his business links, particularly with the Hindujas, the Foreign Office Minister, Mr. Keith Vaz, was today defended by the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Robin Cook, even as Mr. Peter Mandelson - the other player in the passport affair - returned home from a foreign holiday, vowing to clear his name.

In an interview to The Times, Mr. Cook said Mr. Vaz was being ``hounded'' by the right-wing media for his pro-Europe views and pointed out that there was no evidence of wrongdoing against him.

The media attacks were based on ``innuendoes,'' he said, making a distinction between his case and that of Mr. Mandelson, who was forced to resign after he accepted that he made contradictory statements while recalling a telephone conversation with a Home Office Minister over Mr. Srichand Hinduja's passport.

Asking the media to bring the curtain down on ``this incessant hounding'' of Mr. Vaz, Mr. Cook said: ``Not a single fact has been produced which suggests that Keith has behaved improperly as a Minister or broken the ministerial code.'' He urged the media to leave it to the Hammond inquiry to establish facts relating to the passport controversy.

The inquiry, headed by Sir Anthony Hammond QC, will examine the role of Mr. Mandelson and Mr. Vaz in the row and is expected to give its report by the end of this month, though questions have been raised about its credibility in view of the fact that Sir Anthony is a former Home Department official.

There is speculation on whether he would be sufficiently detached while inquiring into the conduct of his former colleagues in the Home Office in granting passports to the two Hinduja brothers - Srichand and Gopichand.

In an interview to the BBC Radio, Mr. Cook praised Mr. Vaz's work as Minister for Europe saying he had done an excellent job and that was why the anti-Europe press was ``out to get him.''

Mr. Vaz also got a breather on the controversy over three donations of £ 5,000 each made to him in the last elections, which, it was alleged by The Sunday Telegraph, never reached the Leicester East Labour party fund. One of donors, Mr. Charles Riachy, clarified that he made out the cheque to the local party unit and not to Mr. Vaz personally.

He called Mr. Vaz a victim of a ``smear campaign'' while Mr. Vaz's agent in the last election said the donation was put in another account.

`Resignation not justified'

Mr. Mandelson, meanwhile, has caused ripples in Government circles by declaring that he was unjustly forced to resign on incomplete evidence. A note, leaked to the media, shows that the Home Minister, Mr. Mike O'Brien, to whom Mr. Mandelson made the famous call on behalf of Mr. Srichand Hinduja, does not clearly remember the content of the conversation. This dramatically changes the situation as this crucial conversation was used to ``hang'' Mr. Mandelson.

There is anxiety that a fightback by Mr. Mandelson, so close to the elections, could damage the party, though he emphasised on Sunday that he would not do anything to harm the party. He was seeking justice, not revenge.

As the furore over the Hindujas' ``networking'' continued, a senior Cambridge University academic suggested a ``hard look'' at whether the university should accept any more money from the Hindujas who fund the Hinduja Cambridge Trust and the Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Research.``We need to take a very hard look at whether we should take any more money from them,'' said Dr. Gillian Evans, former member of the university's governing council.

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Section  : International
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