Cherie Blair facing corruption probe threat over £420,000 deal with a Maldivian despot

• Her law firm earned £2,000 a day representing President Abdulla Yameen
• Firm paid more than £200,000 of fee by suspected conman and terrorist
• Omnia Strategy could become subject of anti-corruption investigation
• Mr Yameen has jailed 1,700 opposition activists and rival party leaders

Murky financial links between Cherie Blair and the corrupt dictator of a tax haven with an appalling record on human rights can be revealed today.

A law firm founded by Tony Blair’s wife, who trumpets her human rights work, earned more than £2,000 a day representing Abdulla Yameen, the autocratic president of the Maldives.

In a highly irregular move, the firm was paid more than £200,000 of its fee by a suspected conman and terrorist now wanted by Interpol.

As a result, Mrs Blair’s company, Omnia Strategy, could become the subject of an anti-corruption investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and US government.

Mr Yameen has jailed more than 1,700 opposition activists, and the leaders of three rival political parties, staging show trials dubbed a ‘travesty of justice’ by Amnesty International.

A Daily Mail investigation has discovered that Mrs Blair’s firm:

• Agreed to work for Mr Yameen’s dictatorship for six months in return for £420,000;
• Publicly claimed its job was to help build democracy and ‘improve transparency and accountability in the country’ when Omnia was also hired to handle the regime’s PR;
• Was paid £210,000 of its fee by Mohamed Allam Latheef, a businessman who is accused of corruption, arms trafficking, terrorism, and the embezzlement of more than £30million in public money;
• Was involved in financial transactions with Abdullah Ziyath, ex-head of a Maldives tourist quango, who is suspected of colluding with Latheef and is on trial accused of masterminding the theft of more than £50million from the government.

Last night, Omnia said in a statement it took the suggestion it had received money from someone other than its client ‘very seriously’ and was urgently ‘reviewing’ the payment.

+6

Ousted: Mohamed Nasheed, who claims he was forced out of office at gunpoint in 2012, was represented by lawyer Amal Clooney and later jailed for 13 years in a trial described by Amnasty International as a 'sham'

Lawyers representing victims of the regime called for the financial relationship between Mrs Blair and the dictatorship to be investigated by UK and US fraud authorities.

One said: ‘Like all law firms … Omnia is subject to strict money-laundering laws which require it to carry out due diligence on the people who are paying it.’

Mrs Blair’s firm was hired by the Maldivian government last summer, claiming its role was to promote democracy and transparency.

But secret documents obtained by the Mail reveal the firm was hired to advise on ‘strategic diplomacy, media training, [and] international media relations’ – and to handle PR during the regime’s legal battle with ex-president Mohamed Nasheed, who claims he was forced out of office at gunpoint in 2012.

Mr Nasheed, represented by lawyer Amal Clooney, was later jailed for 13 years in a trial described by Amnesty International as a ‘sham’.

Amid an international outcry over his treatment and the government’s crackdown on human rights, Mrs Clooney agreed to represent Mr Nasheed for free.

In contrast, Mrs Blair’s legal firm Omnia Strategy made a deal to help the Maldivian government for two payments of £210,000.

Omnia then billed Abdullah Ziyath, former managing director of the state-run Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), for its work. 

+6

Autocratic president: Abdulla Yameen has jailed more than 1,700 opposition activists, and the leaders of three rival political parties, staging show trials dubbed a ‘travesty of justice’ by Amnesty International

Ziyath has since been arrested on 50 embezzlement charges as part of a £55million alleged corruption investigation.

Bank records show a payment subsequently made to Mrs Blair’s firm came not from Ziyath’s agency, but from MC Maldives Private Ltd, a garment company with no links to political activity.

The company’s owner, Abdulla Rafiu, said he had been duped into paying the money to Mrs Blair by Latheef.

Eva Abdulla, an MP for the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, said: ‘The invoice shows Cherie Blair is working for the most corrupt agency of a very corrupt government.

The invoice shows Cherie Blair is working for the most corrupt agency of a very corrupt government

Eva Abdulla, MP for Maldivian Democratic Party

‘When Omnia sent an invoice to the government and ended up getting paid by a private company, that should have raised all sorts of red flags.’

Mrs Blair is Omnia’s founder and chairman. On its website she describes having more than 35 years’ experience as a barrister specialising in public international law and human rights.

She also boasts that she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill medal in 2007 for her ‘high ideals and courageous actions’.

In a statement, the firm said: ‘Following the unpredictable domestic events that occurred in the Maldives in October and November 2015, Omnia Strategy moved swiftly to suspend the provision of services to MMPRC and subsequently terminated its engagement … before the completion of the contract.

‘Regarding the allegations surrounding payment of our invoice, we are taking this matter very seriously and are reviewing the suggestion our client was not in control of the referenced bank account.’

It said its role involved advising the government on legislative and institutional reform, adding that this was: ‘This was a separate contract… it has also concluded.’

A spokesman for the Maldives President’s Office said it was unable to comment yesterday.

Cherie, human rights hypocrite: Damning dossier on Mrs Blair's 'ethical' law firm reveals dealings with arms trafficker now wanted for terrorism

What is Cherie Blair’s ‘ethical’ law firm doing making huge sums representing a banana republic with a dreadful human rights record? And, oh, yes, the money was paid by a man now wanted by Interpol for arms trafficking, terrorism and corruption

+6

Left-wing wife: Cherie Blair has missed few opportunities to try to give the public a rose-tinted view of her politically correct lobbying and legal work

What first attracted Cherie Blair to the wealthy dictator in charge of one of the world’s most corrupt and repressive tax havens?

That was the question being asked last summer when the supposedly principled human rights lawyer unveiled her latest high-profile client.

His name was Abdulla Yameen, and while he might have boasted very deep pockets, he also happened to be an international pariah.

As President of the Maldives since 2013, Yameen presided over a kleptocratic government notorious for its systematic violations of democracy and human rights.

Around 1,700 political opponents had been chucked into prison since Yameen’s disputed 2013 election. They included Mohammed Nasheed, Yameen’s charismatic predecessor whose case was dubbed a ‘travesty of justice’ by Amnesty International and whose celebrity supporters ranged from Sir Richard Branson to Amal Clooney.

What made Cherie’s choice of client so extraordinary was that she had always — on paper, at least — supposedly devoted her adult life to human rights and democracy.

As the Left-wing wife of a former Labour Prime Minister, she had missed few opportunities to try to give the public a rose-tinted view of her politically correct lobbying and legal work.

A sense of the image she wanted to project can be seen in the biographical profiles beneath expensive portrait photos on her two personal websites.

The profiles state that, as well as ‘being involved with over 20 charities’, the QC and former Judge has devoted her adult life to ‘fighting for human rights in her professional career’ and is ‘a strong advocate for women’s rights’ and crusader on the subject of ‘social responsibility’.

Yet here she was trying to further the interests of a government whose appetite for jailing dissidents had turned it into the Indian Ocean’s premier banana republic.

So what was going on? Why had Mrs Blair, at 61, taken such a sordid job?

One un-named former minister in her husband Tony’s government recently ventured an interesting — if controversial — point of view.

‘It always struck me that [Cherie] was insecure,’ he told the Guardian newspaper. ‘That is down to her background. Everything flows from that: the need for money.’

In other words, the ex-minister was suggesting, Cherie had cynically agreed to represent a despot because she fancied a fat pay cheque.

It’s a theory which looks all the more compelling in light of two extraordinary secret documents which fell into the Mail’s hands this week.

+6

Representing a despot: Mrs Blair, whose firm’s client was Maldives President Yameen, in dark glasses (above)

The first is an invoice that Cherie’s firm, Omnia Strategy, sent to the Maldives government on August 24 last year.

It makes clear the firm expected a ‘fixed fee’ of £420,000 — to be paid in two £210,000 tranches — in return for six months of work. To put it another way, Ms Blair was prepared to abandon her treasured principles in return for £70,000 per month for her firm, or just over £2,000 a day.

That’s a tidy fee for a working class girl from Liverpool — even if it represents a mere fraction of her and her husband’s estimated £60 million net worth today.

Tony Blair, who since leaving office built much of that fortune doing business with a host of the world’s most sleazy autocrats — from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to Kuwait and Qatar — would doubtless agree.

Intriguingly, the invoice we have seen for the first £210,000 tranche contains a potted description of how Omnia actually earned this tainted money.

It states that the firm’s duties consisted of helping the Yameen regime carry out ‘strategic diplomacy, media training, international media relations, and the management of the international coverage’ of a controversial decision to jail three high-profile dissidents.

Which surely means that Omnia was acting as the despotic regime’s PR company.

There’s nothing illegal about that (although some would view it as deeply immoral), but the fact is that in public Omnia has always described the work it has done for the Maldivian regime very differently.

Only last month, for example, Cherie’s firm released a statement claiming its involvement in the exotic country was all about improving the lot of its 320,000 citizens by helping ‘improve transparency and accountability’.

Deeply shady suspected fraudster: Mohamed Allam Latheef is a businessman accused of corruption, arms trafficking, terrorism, and the embezzlement of more than £30million in public money

‘As a law firm, Omnia Strategy advises governments on issues relating to matters of international law and treaty obligations,’ the statement read. ‘The work Omnia Strategy has undertaken is intended to bring tangible improvements to a young nation. Any comments suggesting the contrary are wholly inappropriate and without ground.’

Compare and contrast that public statement with the contents of its invoice.

Asked to square the two divergent mission statements, Omnia released a further statement to the Mail last night insisting that it did indeed advise the Maldives government on ‘legislative and institutional reform’.

However, it said, this part of its work took place under ‘a separate contract’ to the one the Mail has obtained details of.

That won’t silence the critics, however.

If Cherie Blair had done any kind of homework, she would have known that this is an indefensible regime

Eva Abdulla, MP for Maldivian Democratic Party

‘Omnia repeatedly told the people of the Maldives that the firm had been hired to help the government with legal reform and democracy,’ says Eva Abdulla, one of the few opposition MPs in the Maldives still brave enough to publicly venture an opinion that might upset the dictatorship.

‘This document instead shows that a major part of the job was a PR role. They were explicitly hired to defend the government’s decision to jail opposition leaders.

‘If Cherie Blair had done any kind of homework, she would have known that this is an indefensible regime. But the only thing she seems to have cared about is the fact that the government was going to pay her.’

That, however, isn’t the only point of interest about Omnia’s £210,000 invoice.

Another can be found towards the top of the document, which was sent from Cherie’s swanky office in a tower block near Hyde Park in London.

There you can see that it was addressed to one of Omnia’s key contacts in the Yameen regime: Abdulla Ziyath, the ‘Managing Director of the Maldives Marketing and Promotion Board’ or MMPRC. (He was actually MD of the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation, but the invoice got the firm’s name wrong.)

+6

Career: Mrs Blair, pictured with her husband Tony, had always - on paper, at least - supposedly devoted her adult life to human rights and democracy

Mr Ziyath is — shall we say? — an intriguing character for Mrs Blair, or indeed anyone else, to have entered into a lucrative business relationship with.

Formerly a close associate of the dictator, he is facing criminal trial for his alleged role in the biggest ever fraud case to hit the Maldives: the embezzlement of around £50 million from MMPRC, which he ran. Ziyath was arrested in October last year after it emerged that tens of millions of pounds of public money had illegally been siphoned from its coffers.

Prosecutors allege that the organisation — which took cash from developers in return for granting tourist licences and leases on land for hotels — then handed huge illegal bungs to dozens of influential figures in the Yameen government.

A special audit found that Ziyath had signed off millions of dollars of cheques to private companies, and subleased 59 islands, lagoons and plots of land for development without keeping documents detailing the transactions.

He and two co-defendants (one of whom is Yameen’s former vice president Ahmed Adeeb) face 50 corruption charges. 

They are maintaining their innocence, and their trial continues. On paper, of course, none of this unfortunate scandal is Omnia’s fault. The invoice pre-dates Ziyath’s arrest, and there is no reason why the firm should have known about the scandal when it agreed to work with him.

However, the second of the two secret documents we have seen will drag Cherie squarely into this deeply unedifying affair.

The A4 sheet is a receipt detailing the bank transfer on September 18 in which Omnia was wired the £210,000 payment it had requested from the Maldives government.

Look closely at the document and you will see that the cash in question — said to be payment for ‘professional services’ — came from an account held at the Bank of Ceylon in Male, the capital of the Maldives.

Yet this bank account did not belong to the Maldives government, or even to Ziyath’s supposedly corrupt PR agency, which Omnia had billed. Instead the account was controlled by a completely different private company called MC Maldives Pvt Ltd.

So what was going on?

When I found out I was very unhappy. I am a businessman. I don’t want any connection with political things. I asked my friend for an explanation, and he said he would get back to me but never did

Abdulla Rafiu, entrepreneur

We have established that MC Maldives is a large textiles firm which imports and exports clothing to and from the Maldives. It is owned by Abdulla Rafiu, a well-known entrepreneur who also owns a tobacco business.

However, when we called Mr Rafiu this week, he claimed to have arranged the bank transfer to Mrs Blair as a favour for a second local businessman called Mohamed Allam Latheef.

Latheef, in turn, owns a company called SOF Pvt Ltd. According to Rafiu, it was SOF’s money that ended up in the HSBC bank account of Mrs Blair’s firm.

He says — and has shown us documents to prove it — that SOF had been unable to make an international payment on the afternoon of September 18 because it was the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid.

The firm had therefore put the funds into Rafiu’s account, and Latheef had asked him to transfer it directly to an HSBC account in London as a favour. Only later did Rafiu realise that the money was going to Cherie Blair.

‘When I found out I was very unhappy,’ he told us. ‘I am a businessman. I don’t want any connection with political things. I asked my friend for an explanation, and he said he would get back to me but never did.’

All of which begs a second question: who was this Mr Latheef who actually paid Cherie Blair’s bill?

Here things get murkier still: for Latheef is a deeply shady suspected fraudster at the centre of the ongoing corruption scandal involving Ziyath.

Maldivian prosecutors claim that the bulk of the funds looted from the MMPRC — some £30 million — were funnelled to his aforementioned private firm, SOF Pvt Limited.

He recently fled the country and now is the subject of an Interpol red notice — effectively an international arrest warrant.

The red notice states that Latheef is wanted for ‘threatening catastophe; criminal property damage; use of dangerous weapon during an offence; trafficking, manufacture sale or possession of catastrophic agents or firearms; terrorism and corruption’.

What a colourful chap to be paying £210,000 to Mrs Blair’s law firm!

Quite where this leaves Omnia Strategies is anyone’s guess. The firm is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which requires members to follow detailed guidelines designed to avoid them being paid from the proceeds of money laundering, crime and corruption.

Among other things, they stipulate that firms such as Mrs Blair’s ought to carry out stringent ‘due diligence regarding the true source of funds paid by a client’.

They are also supposed to carry out detailed checks to ensure that people paying them are who they say they are.

It broke every rule in the book: Omnia billed the government, and was paid by a private firm. This boasts tell-tale signs of money laundering

British lawyer, working on behalf of the victims of Abdulla Yameen

Mrs Blair is a QC and former judge, so she ought to ensure that her firm is stringent in carrying out forensic checks.

All of which makes one wonder why Omnia did not tell money-laundering watchdogs that it had accepted a £210,000 international payment from a completely different organisation from the one it had invoiced — in a country famed for corruption and money laundering. 

When we asked Mrs Blair’s office about the affair yesterday, it released a statement saying: ‘Regarding the allegations surrounding the payment of our invoice, we are taking this matter very seriously and are reviewing the suggestion that our client was not in control of the referenced bank account.

‘Omnia Strategy has in place strict compliance policies and procedures.’

The statement added that Omnia had terminated its six-month contract early ‘following the unpredictable domestic events that occurred in the Maldives in October and November 2015 [a reference, one imagines, to Ziyath’s arrest]’ and is ‘no longer instructed’ by either the Government or the scandal-hit quango.

That’s unlikely to silence critics. One British lawyer working on behalf of the victims of Yameen tells me he is passing details of the transaction to anti-fraud authorities in the UK and the U.S. (where Omnia has a second office in Washington DC).

‘Cherie Blair should have known that she was going into business with a very nasty regime, with links to corruption and organised crime, so this payment ought never to have been accepted,’ he said. ‘It broke every rule in the book: Omnia billed the government, and was paid by a private firm. This boasts tell-tale signs of money laundering.’

The opposition MP, Eva Abdulla, added: ‘Cherie Blair is working for the most corrupt agency of a very corrupt government.

‘When Omnia sent an invoice to the government and ended up getting paid by a private company, that should have raised all sorts of red flags.’

‘That they simply chose to accept this money regardless of its provenance tells us everything we need to know about the firm and the people that run it.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3451999/Cherie-Blair-facing-corruption-probe-threat-420-000-deal-Maldivian-despot.html#ixzz40Uyv80PO