[A-List] Iraq: private security watch

[Michael Keaney]

Private Eye

No. 1111, 23 July - 5 August 2004

More on Aegis Defence Systems, the British private military contracting firm
run by Colonel Tim Spicer, which picked up a whopping $293m job from Iraq's
coalition provisional authority (CPA) to oversee security operations.

Spicer previously made headlines with his botched efforts at
sanctions-busting in Sierra Leone and dealing with rebels in Papua New
Guinea. He has started several security businesses in the past, although
only the infamous Sandline has done noticeable business.

Documents held on Aegis at Companies House do little to clear up the mystery
of how a two-year-old company not on any approved Pentagon list of security
companies landed the mammoth Iraq deal (Eye 1109).

Spicer, who to no one's knowledge has filed a claim to be a beneficiary of a
confidentiality order under the companies act, fails to give a home address
as required, either as shareholder or director, giving instead the company's
address -- although perhaps the old soldier is sleeping on a camp bed in his
office. Paid up share capital in the company amounts to just £137, although
it has some 19 shareholders, with about half hidden behind nominee names.
Spicer's 35 percent share has a value of just £50.

Among those shareholders who are named is none other than Frederick Forsyth,
who is in for a grand total of £4.14.

Despite being nearly two years old, the company has yet to file its first
accounts.