A WEAPONS company in Scotland that was given £185,000 in public funds has been linked to a Saudi missile strike that killed 40 Yemeni children.
Jane’s, the respected defence industry publication, said remnants of a guidance kit by Raytheon appear to have been found close to the scene of the air strike on a school bus earlier this month, which killed 51 people in total.
A photograph taken beside the bus shows a child holding a piece of shrapnel from the missile that matches images of a Paveway warhead posted on Raytheon’s website. The arms company, which has a plant in Glenrothes, sells the hardware to the desert kingdom.
The Sunday Mail yesterday reported that documents show Raytheon has received £135,465 from Scottish Enterprise between 2014 and 2017 and that it is understood a further £50,160 has been awarded this year.
It was also reported Raytheon senior managers were granted a secret meeting with Scottish Government Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse in January to lobby for further money, for which he insisted no “comms (communications) activity” accompany his visit to the Fife base.
A policy statement on the SNP website states “there should be an immediate ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia pending proper investigation. And we will urge the UK Government to immediately halt all military support and arms sales to regimes suspected of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”
MSP Ross Greer, external affairs spokesman for the Scottish Greens, said: “The hypocrisy is just stomach churning... No donation to charity will wash the blood off their hands and no attempts to keep meetings private or stall Freedom of Information requests will stop the truth from coming out.
The Scottish Government said money given to Raytheon was to help the firm branch out into other areas. It said: “The Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies do not provide funding for the manufacture of munitions.
“The support provided is focused on helping firms to diversify and develop non-military applications for their technology and ensure Scotland continues to benefit from the thousands of jobs in the defence, aerospace and shipbuilding sectors.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel