June 28, 2007 (LPAC)--Anti-corruption investigations targeting the sale of JAS Gripen fighters by BAE to the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria, are being accelerated through the efforts of the European Union's judicial cooperation unit called "Eurojust."

On May 10, prosecutors, magistrates and police officials from six countries, including Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria, met at Eurojust's headquarters in The Hague to coordinate their investigations, and to exchange information, evidence, and investigative leads, to further the investigations in the various countries.

Eurojust spokesman Joannes Thuy told EIR News Service that his organization has a unique capability to facilitate the investigation into the corruption allegations. Founded in 2001 as an institution of the European Union, Eurojust was intended to facilitate cross-national investigations into organized crime and white collar crime. Each of the 27 EU countries has delegated a prosecutor to be resident at Eurojust. In addition, through cooperation agreements, the U.S., Norway and Iceland each have a prosecutor delegate as well. While Eurojust does not initiate investigations, it can serve as a coordinating point where evidence can be exchanged, and coordination can take place among groups of countries. Thus time-consuming formal requests for judicial cooperation between individual countries, which can take weeks or months, are eliminated.

The May 10 meeting was the result of a request by Sweden and the Czech Republic, which have opened investigations. The Gripen is produced by the Swedish Saab company which is a joint venture with BAE. It was the latter, which organized the sale of the jets to the Czech Republic, where bribing of government officials has been alleged. BAE was involved in similar alleged bribery, in sales of the jets to Hungary and Austria. Hungary, which has its own investigation, was not present at the meeting on May 10. Despite the fact that the British government has blocked the Serious Fraud Office's (SFO) investigation into BAE, SFO nonetheless set a team.

Asked whether the United States Justice Department had requested cooperation from Eurojust in its own investigation into BAE, Mr. Thuy said that he was not aware of such a request, but that did not necessarily mean that it hadn't happened. Because these are ongoing investigations, he was limited in what information he was able to release.