'I failed to show wife the respect she deserves'

THE beleaguered MP George Galloway yesterday admitted that he had not shown his wife the respect she deserved during their marriage, but claimed that he had been stunned to learn she was seeking a divorce.

The former Glasgow Kelvin Labour MP confessed that he had been hurt by his Palestinian-born wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad’s assertion that she had received phone calls from women claiming to have been involved with her husband, but insisted that he intended to fight to save his marriage.

And Mr Galloway, who now represents the Respect party, again claimed suggestions that he had been unfaithful had been manufactured by people who were out to destroy him.

His comments came in an interview published as he arrived in Washington in an attempt to salvage his reputation from its latest savaging, this time at the hands of US investigators, who have accused him of receiving vouchers for millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Last night Mr Galloway said he would be looking for an apology for the way US senators carried out their investigation in which they accused him of maintaining business links to the former Iraqi dictator.

"It is a schoolboy dossier, full of holes, full of falsehoods," he told reporters in the US.

"I am not expecting any justice from the innards of the US government but I want to appear not as the accused, but as the accuser."

Yesterday he insisted that he had never received a drop of oil from the old Iraqi regime and alleged that the US investigation was part of an attempt to discredit the UN secretary- general, Kofi Annan.

The MP has successfully fought libel cases against the Daily Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor over similar allegations.

But with the fallout from his wife’s allegations refusing to go away, he is fighting to save his marriage in one breath and fighting to clear his name in the next. His mood during interviews has clearly reflected his frustration with the position in which he has found himself.

"I admit I didn’t show my wife the respect she deserves," he said. "Look, I did not see this coming. The day that I heard - not through her, but via the media - it was the worst ... I was hurt, genuinely stunned."

But he insisted there was more to the story than met the eye.

"Two women and a man have been calling my wife incessantly for the past year, telling her stories about me and other women."

At today’s televised hearing before the US Senate permanent sub-committee on investigations, he is expected to launch an equally fierce defence against allegations that the former Iraqi leader personally granted him the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the now-defunct UN oil-for-food programme.

According to US investigators, the allegations about the oil vouchers were levelled against him by the former Iraqi vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, and another former regime official, but Mr Galloway questioned their veracity.

"They all come from the same swamp," he said. "I’ve never met the person who is quoted against me. But I do know that he’s a prisoner of the Americans in Abu Ghraib and facing the death sentence. Who knows the circumstances under which he said this - or even if he said it."

The BBC has defended Jeremy Paxman’s election-night interview with Mr Galloway after the corporation received more than 100 complaints.

Viewers complained that the interview, which followed Mr Galloway’s victory over Labour’s Oona King, was too aggressive.