Labour MP, Mr George Galloway, returned to Britain last night accompanied by the Iraqi child he rescued from certain death in Baghdad and was immediately embroiled in a political storm over his decision.
United Nations sanctions were lifted temporarily to enable Mr Galloway to bring four-year-old Mariam Hamza to Britain. She will receive life-saving treatment for leukaemia at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. A spokesman for Mr Morgan Jamieson, medical director of the hospital, said last night clinicians felt Mariam - due to be admitted today - was "iller than they had been led to believe," but they were unsure whether the leukaemia or malnutrition had worsened her condition.
The UN gesture of goodwill allowed Mariam to be flown from Baghdad to Jordan, instead of enduring a 12-hour drive across the desert to Amman. Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan had chartered a flight to Britain for her. On landing at Amman Airport, Mr Galloway described the reason he chose Mariam: "She was the first child in the first bed in the first ward of the General Hospital in Baghdad."
Mr Galloway first met Mariam during a visit to Baghdad last month and when he returned to Britain he enlisted the help of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, who asked the British mission to the UN to raise her case with its sanctions committee. The MP, who has long campaigned for the lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq and has blamed the decline of health care in the country on the sanctions, said he hoped Mariam's case would "light a candle which will illuminate the terrible picture left behind in Baghdad".
But the MP's gesture was criticised yesterday by the Iraqi National Congress (a group of exiled Iraqis opposed to President Saddam's regime), who said Mr Galloway had been duped. A spokesman for the INC said Iraq was allowed to import more than £6 billion of food under the oil-for-food deal but Saddam had refused to do so.
"The Saddam regime are using this trip as blackmail to get sanctions lifted, but the last thing we Iraqis want is for Saddam to get his hands on the funds. It is very unfortunate that the Foreign Office and an MP from a democratic country should allow themselves to be used in this way."
Yesterday the Iraqi Foreign Ministry accused the British government of delaying contracts for medical supplies that are permitted under UN sanctions. A statement said Britain had directly contributed to the delay of 31 medical contracts "under the excuse that information is insufficient".
PA adds:
An inquest into the death of a Gulf War veteran was adjourned yesterday after a pathologist said she could not rule out the possibility that his illness was caused by Gulf War Syndrome.
Mr Andrew Ross (33), died last April from a massive lung tumour which was so rare that doctors could not give it a name. An inquest in Huddersfield, northern England, was told Mr Ross had been given a series of vaccinations for diseases including anthrax and cholera before he left for the Gulf.
His wife Jackie, believed his death, which came just four weeks after he developed chest pains, was linked to his time there.