MANAMA, 10 May 2007 — Bahrain’s Cabinet affairs minister said he is prepared to be questioned over corruption allegations, the official BNA news agency reported yesterday.
“I am innocent ... and I wish to openly announce that my financial situation is sound and I will not allow this sort of talk to be associated with me,” Sheikh Ahmad ibn Atiyatullah Al-Khalifa said.
Deputies from Bahrain’s opposition bloc walked out of Parliament on Tuesday after the chamber voted against grilling Sheikh Ahmad over the corruption allegations.
Sheikh Ali Salman, who heads the Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), said the bloc was studying further moves and did not say when the bloc’s MPs would return to Parliament.
The INAA controls 17 seats in the 40-member assembly.
The charges were linked to a controversial report by Salah Al-Bandar — a British former adviser to the government — ahead of November’s legislative elections that claimed the government was plotting to rig the polls.
