Aitken committed for trial at Old Bailey
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Your support makes all the difference.JONATHAN AITKEN yesterday became the first former cabinet minister in modern times to be committed to stand trial at the Old Bailey on criminal charges.
Mr Aitken, the chief secretary to the Treasury under John Major and once seen as a future Tory leader, faces a jury trial on charges of perjury, conspiring to pervert the course of justice, and perverting the course of justice. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in jail on each count. Said Mohammed Ayas, a former business associate of Mr Aitken, was also committed to stand trial on the charge of conspiracy, as well as a charge of perverting the course of justice.
Mr Aitken's estranged wife, Lolicia, is named in one of the charges as a party to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. However, Mrs Aitken has been neither charged nor arrested and is thought to be living abroad.
Neither Mr Aitken nor Mr Ayas spoke during the 11-minute hearing at Bow Street magistrates' court yesterday morning. A preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey is provisionally scheduled for 18 January next year.
The charges against Mr Aitken and Mr Ayas, both 56, followed the collapse of Mr Aitken's libel trial against The Guardian and Granada television's World in Action programme over the issue of a hotel bill for the Ritz hotel in Paris. It is alleged that between 9 April 1998 and 21 June 1997 Mr Aitken and Mr Ayas, along with Lolicia Aitken, knowingly signed false witness statements for the High Court, stating that Mrs Aitken and the Aitkens' daughter, Victoria, had stayed in Paris at the flat of Mr Ayas's daughter.
The statement also claimed, allegedly falsely, that on 19 September, Mrs Aitken was in Paris and had paid a sum of money in respect of a bill at the Paris Ritz run up by Mr Aitken.
Mr Aitken faces three further charges; two of attempting to pervert the course of justice and one of perjury, in which it is alleged that under oath he wilfully made a false statement that on 19 September 1993 Mrs Aitken was in Paris and had paid money towards his hotel bill.
Whatever the outcome of the financial action, Mr Aitkenis said to be financially ruined.
He faces a pounds 2m legal bill over the High Court action, and a judge recently stopped him from transferring his pounds 2m home to Mrs Aitken as part of a divorce settlement.
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