2025-09-15
51 分钟This is The Guardian.
The whistleblower who exposed the UK's dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia by David Pegg, read by Shane Zaza.
Three days before he fled Saudi Arabia, Ian Foxley was summoned to his boss's office on the 22nd floor of a Riyadh skyscraper and told to either resign or be sacked.
He had been in the job for just six months and it was clear to him that something in the organization was badly wrong.
But he did not suspect that he would soon be in fear of his life.
It was in May 2010 while reading the Sunday Times at home in a village near York that Foxley had spotted the job advert.
A company was looking for someone to oversee the expansion of a British Army program in Saudi Arabia called Sankom.
worth £150 million when first agreed in 1978.
The programme had grown into a £2 billion deal for the UK government to supply the Saudi Arabian National Guard with everything from encrypted radios to satellite communications and fibre optics.
Foxley hadn't heard of Sankom, but it was well known among graduates of the Royal Corps of Signals, the British Army Specialist Communications Division, where Foxley had been a Lieutenant Colonel.
In theory, Sankom was run by a few dozen UK Ministry of Defence specialists in Riyadh.
In practice, the programme was almost entirely managed by GPT Special Project Management, a contractor hired by the British government.
As and when the Saudis wanted to upgrade their military communications, GPT would draft suggestions for what they might like to buy from the British.
In spring 2010, The Saudis decided to buy more equipment via Sankom, and GPT was hiring someone to put together new spending proposals for them.
For Foxley, it seemed like a perfect gig.
He had worked a series of contracting jobs since leaving the army in 1998, ranging from project managing fibre optic networks for Tiskali, to two years running Domino's Pizza franchises in York.
He knew other ex-signals officers at Sankom.
who reported positive things.
A preliminary interview in Dubai went well and GPT hired him on probation.
He arrived in Riyadh in July 2010 and his wife, Emma, planned to follow once he had settled in.