London- Sana
An investigation published by the British newspaper "The Independent" today revealed that the deadly weapons and military equipment Britain exported to the Saudi regime to commit more massacres against civilians in Yemen and destroy its infrastructure is three times higher than what was thought.
The newspaper said that according to official government figures, ministers had signed off on arms sales worth 6.7 billion pounds to export bombs, missiles and planes since Saudi Arabia began its war on Yemen in 2015.
However, researchers who have delved into official records and those of arms manufacturers say, according to the newspaper, that the real figure is closer to 20 billion pounds, as the official figures do not include sales made under a vague “open licensing” system. arms with the Saudi regime.
The investigation indicated that between 2014 and 2019, the United Kingdom operated an “open license” for bombs and air-to-ground missiles for the Saudi regime separately, and the export of equipment and components used in the Eurofighter Typhoon was covered under this license.
The experts also examined the accounts of companies known to sell arms to the Saudi regime and found that the revenues of only one company, “PaySystem,” sourced from the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, amounted to nearly 17 billion pounds during this period. As a result, the experts estimated that the real value of exports is close to 20 billion pounds sterling.
And British media reports revealed last year that the government of Boris Johnson insisted on resuming the export of lethal weapons to the Saudi regime, despite a judicial decision preventing it from this step, amid warnings from human rights groups and organizations that the Saudi regime would use these weapons to kill civilians in Yemen, which described this insistence. By “moral bankruptcy” as it caused “the worst humanitarian crisis and committed terrible violations of international and human rights laws by targeting civilian gatherings such as weddings, burial ceremonies and markets,” according to the description of the organizations.
Britain is the sixth largest arms exporter, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and purchases by the Saudi regime accounted for 43 percent of total British arms sales over the past decade.