BEIJING, May 17 -- British lawmaker George Galloway has left for Washington to fight allegations that he profited from Saddam Hussein's regime.

    Galloway is to appear before members of a senate sub-committee, who've accused him of receiving vouchers for millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Husein.

    The politician, a member of the British parliament for the Respect Party, has denied the claims.

    "I'm going to accuse them of being involved in a huge diversion from the real issues in Iraq, which are the theft of billions of dollars worth of Iraq wealth by the United States of America and its corporations and the death of more than 100-thousand people in Iraq."

    Galloway has denied the allegations and said he did not receive any benefits from the program.

    The oil-for-food programme allowed Saddam's government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people, who suffer UN sanctions imposed following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

    But Saddam has been accused of awarding former government officials, activists, UN officials and journalists vouchers for Iraqi oil, in a bid to earn illegal revenues and peddle influence

    The allegations against Galloway were made before, including in a report last October by US arms inspector Charles Duelfer. Enditem

(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)