Exclusive: 'We lied about Nadir bribe plot': Two central figures in the alleged scheme to buy a judge claim it was really a trap for the tycoon. Tim Kelsey reports

THE TWO KEY witnesses at the centre of an alleged plot by Asil Nadir to bribe a judge now claim they invented the evidence.

Michael John Francis and Wendy Elizabeth Welsher have fled Britain and are in northern Cyprus, where Nadir has been living since his flight from the UK last May. Mr Francis, who has a criminal record, is staying at the Jasmine Court Hotel, owned by Nadir. The pair both deny being paid in any way by the fugitive tycoon and Mr Francis says he is paying his own hotel bills.

The two claim that they spent more than two years trying to make it appear that Nadir was implicated in a plot to bribe his trial judge. Some of their information was later used as the basis for a police investigation during which Nadir was arrested twice. Ms Welsher, 42, a businesswoman from Edgware, north London, claims she became involved in early 1991 when she was approached by Mr Francis, whom she knew as Michael Adams.

He told her he needed her help to contact Asil Nadir, who had been charged with false accounting and theft after the collapse of his Polly Peck empire and was on bail living in London. She was to propose that Nadir would have his passport returned, and be given leave by the court to travel overseas, if he paid pounds 3.5m.

She made contact with the Nadir family through business contacts in Turkey later that year. She visited Safiye Nadir, mother of Asil, in northern Cyprus and tried to interest her in plans for a timeshare project in Istanbul. Ms Welsher says she did not, however, broach the matter of the passport or the pounds 3.5m on that occasion. She says that she could find no way of bringing it up in the conversation.

From what Mr Francis and Ms Welsher say now, it appears they intended to establish bank accounts in Europe for funds given legitimately by the Nadirs for the timeshare development and then to claim to the police that those funds were intended to provide a bribe for the judge. They claim they were paid pounds 111,000 by the family for feasibility studies on the timeshare developments. This was put in a bank account in Switzerland.

It is also alleged that police officers working for the Serious Fraud Office attended meetings with Mr Francis in September 1992 while he was on remand on charges of possession of a false passport. Police say that the first they knew of Nadir's alleged involvement in a plot to bribe the trial judge was in October 1992. They did not disclose to Nadir's trustee in bankruptcy any involvement with either Mr Francis or Ms Welsher until March 1993.

The solicitors for the trustee said: 'We are most concerned at the allegations and would expect the Metropolitan Police and the SFO to give a full account of their dealings with the informers, bearing in mind that the informers appear to have handled assets (including a painting) which belong to the bankruptcy.' Trustees in bankruptcy have powers to take legal action to find out how much the police knew.

Scotland Yard refused yesterday to make any comment on a detailed series of questions put to it. In a statement, Scotland Yard said: 'We are satisfied that no police officers have been involved in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.' The SFO said it could not comment on the investigation into the conspiracy allegations because it was a police inquiry.

The Independent has seen video- recorded statements by the two witnesses, heard taped telephone conversations with senior police officers and seen documents. The Independent has also interviewed Mr Francis and Ms Welsher at length.

The two fled, at different times and for different reasons, first to the Continent and later to northern Cyprus. They separately made contact with Nadir, claiming that they wished to tell him of their attempts to manufacture evidence against him. They have both said they did not make their statements under duress or for any financial gain.

Mr Francis, also known to the police as Stewart Waverley, claims that he worked as a police informer with Scotland Yard's Organised and International Crime Branch (S01) since the early 1980s. He has a long criminal record stretching back to the early 1960s, with convictions for attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. Ms Welsher, 42, has no criminal record.

Nadir, charged with false accounting and theft involving sums of about pounds 30m, jumped pounds 3.5m bail last May. Shortly before he fled the country, the Organised and International Crime Branch announced that it had started a separate investigation into allegations that Nadir was at the centre of a plot to pervert the course of justice by bribing his trial judge with pounds 3.5m stashed in a Swiss bank account. Nadir was arrested twice in connection with this investigation but was never charged; he has always maintained that he knew nothing of such a conspiracy. Welsher and Francis now say that they made it up. The elaborate plot, page 5

(Photograph omitted)