Al-Thawra Net
NGOs allege that the UK has been selling weaponry to Saudi Arabia through an obscure system of arms exports licenses. the Saudi-led coalition has been involved in the war on Yemen Since 2015.
Despite the UK has been insisting that it keeps all arms exports under close control, a freedom of information request submitted by Campaign Against Arms Trade, a UK-based NGO, disclosed that Britain has been selling Storm Shadow and Brimstone missiles, as well as Paveway IV laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia.
According to The Guardian, the deadly exports have been shipped for the last five years under Open Individual Export Licences (OIELs), which don’t oblige the seller to publish the total value of the license after it expires.
The surprising finding has prompted campaigners to claim that the authorities are trying to hide the real extent of their arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour MP and member of the Commons Committee on Arms Export Controls, said, as quoted by The Guardian, that hundreds of millions of pounds of bombs were shipped to Saudi Arabia under open licenses issued before it launched its Yemen campaign.
“Open licenses remove the need for the seller to obtain prior approval for each export,” said Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade.
According to him, the “opaque” system of OIELs is used to hand over “extremely sensitive weaponry to the Saudi regime.”
Source: Website
