Fresh material released by CAAT indicates a sizable upsurge in the UK weapons sales, in some instances to nations that the UK government itself views as problematic in terms of international law and human rights, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, among others. Overall, London approved arms deals worth some 1.5 billion pounds (almost $2 billion) in 2017 versus 820 million a year earlier, according to CAAT figures.
"What we have seen and might happen in the aftermath of Brexit is that this government might lay a greater focus than is already the case on maximising arms sales to human rights abusing regimes … A lot of the growth has come from Saudi Arabia specifically, which has a lot to do with fighter jet sales and bomb sales, which have massively affected the total figure," Smith said.
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Although a total of 18 "human rights priority" nations were listed in CAAT's figures as being recipients for UK arms sales, Saudi Arabia came out ahead in terms of total purchases made, having spent some 1.3 billion pounds on the UK weapons over the course of the year, according to the spokesman.
"I mean arms exports to Saudi Arabia could be even higher than previously thought, and this is of immediate concern as the Saudi forces have been accused of serious violations of international humanitarian law by UN experts, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and almost every single respected NGO with people on the ground in Yemen, and the only people who tell us otherwise are the Saudi government who can't even be trusted to run free and fair elections yet are trusted by the United Kingdom to audit themselves for war crimes," Smith underlined.
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Thus, London is "complicit" in the destruction of Yemen since it has been providing arms to Saudi Arabia, which leads the coalition carrying out strikes on the Yemeni rebels, the spokesman noted.
According to CAAT, OIELS have been previously used to export arguably "less sensitive materials" without due oversight in regard to either quantity or use, potentially ensuring that the total value of such exports may be higher than originally estimated.
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