The British newspaper The Guardian has a story describing how Saudi Prince Bandar managed to derail a British inquiry into the $2B (that's two billion dollar) bribe the defense contractor BAE Systems is alleged to have paid him.
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
As a Londoner who was close to the scene of the 7/7 bus bombing, its hard for me to think of anything to add to this:
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
Although Tony Blair suppressed the British investigation into the bribes, Prince Bandar isn't out of the woods yet.
Bandar's payments were published in the Guardian and Switzerland subsequently launched a money-laundering inquiry into the Saudi arms deal. The US department of justice has launched its own investigation under the foreign corrupt practices act into the British money received in the US by Bandar while he was ambassador to Washington.
How long before similar threats are heard in Washington?
For background on the bribery allegations, see diaries by Jerome a Paris, LondonYank and others with the BAE tag, and also Wikipedia.