Fraud Squad to launch investigation today into Archer's Kurdish charity

Scotland Yard's Fraud Squad will today receive the official complaint necessary to start an investigation into the disappearance of millions of pounds from a Kurdish charity run by Jeffrey Archer.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, a Liberal MEP and a former Conservative vice-chairman, has asked police to investigate cash raised by the Simple Truth appeal in 1991. She also intends to pass information to the Serious Fraud Office and the Commons Public Accounts Committee. Lady Nicholson's complaint will be backed by Iraqi exile groups who say only a small fraction of the £57m Archer said he raised found its way to impoverished Kurds in northern Iraq.

John Major, a friend and patron of Archer's, had given £10m of government money to the appeal while he was Prime Minister. He also recommended Archer for his peerage on the strength of the money he had raised for the Kurds. Senior civil servants say they advised against aid to the Kurds being sent through the Archer appeal.

The money donated by Mr Major came from the Department of International Development. Clare Short, the current Secretary of State for International Development, has said she is extremely concerned that the decision to give the money to Archer appeared to have been " a political one ... there is no clear record of where the money was spent".

Lady Nicholson said: "We are asking the police and the Serious Fraud Office to investigate the matter in the light of Jeffrey Archer's very serious criminal convictions. There are important questions to be asked, and these questions were not allowed to be asked because of Archer's connections in senior Conservative circles.

"The Public Accounts Committee, I believe, will look at how and why such large funding went to Jeffrey Archer from John Major's government. The Kurdish leaders say they had received virtually nothing from all the money raised.

"They lost out on two counts, not only on the money promised by Archer, but because people who wanted to give may not have done so because they thought there was already so much on the way."

An official of one of the exile groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said: "The money appeared to have vanished into thin air between being raised and going missing. Obviously, we would like to know what happened and co-operate with the police in finding that out."

The Simple Truth charity attracted support from artists such as Sting, Paul Simon, Tom Jones and Chris de Burgh. A fund-raising concert at Wembley Arena in London was broadcast live on television.

Archer arrived at his total of £57,042,000, by adding up the money raised in Britain, including Mr Major's £10m, as well as support from governments abroad. Although Archer claimed £57m was raised, and says he has letters from the United Nations to support it, he has never made this evidence public.

Archer's wife, Mary, is expected to visit him in Belmarsh prison where he has begun his four-year sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Lady Archer believes the trial judge at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Potts, was biased against her husband, and wants to appeal on that ground, says her brother, David Weeden, a surgeon.

"Mary holds the view, quite strongly, that the judge's summing up was rather biased, unfairly sloping towards the value of the prosecution witnesses rather than the defence," Mr Weeden said. "She feels four years is completely out of keeping with a crime like perjury and doesn't compare with much worse crimes for which people are punished considerably less."

Aides acting for Lady Archer have approached newspapers offering to sell her story for £250,000. A deal would include words from her husband in prison, and photographs of his mother's memorial service.

The Government has indicated that the law will be reformed to prevent Archer from taking his place in the House of Lords when he is released.