Sajid Javid urged to return cash over donor's links to war criminal

Taylor, who also donated £500,000 to the Better Together campaign in 2013, faced intense criticism during the independence referendum campaign after pro-indy group National Collective revealed his company’s history, which involved controversial deals in Iran, Iraq, Serbia and Libya.

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It was also revealed that Vitol donated $1 million to Serbian gangster and paramilitary commander Željko Ražnatovi, better known as Arkan, who was on Interpol’s most wanted list throughout the 70s and 80s for murders and robberies.

Arkan, who was regarded as one of the most powerful criminal kingpins in the Balkans, was indicted by the UN for crimes against humanity. He was assassinated in a hotel lobby in Belgrade in 2000 before he could face trial.

Vitol also created problems for then-PM David Cameron when they entered into negotiations with a Russian oil company targeted by US sanctions against President Putin worth $2 billion.

The Daily Telegraph also reported that Vitol had been “in talks” with HMRC over a “tax avoidance bill”. The talks were “to settle a claim for millions of pounds in taxes its senior staff avoided through an offshore pay scheme”.

In response to the National Collective criticism, Taylor threatened to sue the organisation, but dropped the charges in the wake of negative press coverage.

At the time, Better Together head Alistair Darling refused to address the issue, ignoring SNP calls to hand Taylor’s money back.

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After the referendum The Independent ran an expose in 2016 featuring input from a Vitol source who claimed that Taylor’s company was “one of Britain’s biggest tax avoiders”, paying around 10% tax on £9 billion of profits.

The son of an ICI executive from Ayrshire, Taylor has previously described himself as an ardent Scotsman. A staunch unionist, Taylor has donated vast amounts of money to the Tory Party.

He has maintained close political ties to the party and was wined and dined by David Cameron. Tory energy advisor Charles Hendry and former international development secretary Alan Duncan were also recruited to Vitol’s ranks in past years.

It is not clear exactly how wealthy Taylor is. However, he appeared on the Sunday Times Rich list with an estimated wealth of £125m.

Javid, whose campaign has centred around the notion that he is a change candidate “for the future” offering “a new kind of leadership for a new kind of future,” as opposed to “yesterday’s news” Boris Johnson.

His leadership pitch has sought to emphasise his upbringing as a child of immigrant parents from Pakistan, in contrast with the universally privileged backgrounds of his opponents.

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Javid’s attempt on No10 also included heavy referencing to his background in finance.

“When I look at my own experience of doing deals – big international deals in the 19, 20-year career I had before I came into politics – I started at the bottom of the finance industry and finished towards the top, and that was because I built a reputation of doing many multibillion-dollar deals, including some of the largest financing and bond transactions the world had ever seen,” he said.

“So, while I think no one has got perfect experience to deliver Brexit because no one has done anything like it before, I think with that experience that I’ve got outside Government and the experience I’ve got in Government, I think I’m in a very good position to get a good Brexit deal for the United Kingdom,” he concluded during his campaign launch last week.

Installed as Home Secretary in April 2018, Javid suggested that he would deny asylum seekers who crossed the Channel entrance to the UK as they were not “genuine” – a move which was deemed as a violation of international law by Amnesty International.

In February this year, he revoked the citizenship of Shamima Begum, a British 19-year-old who joined Daesh when she was 16. Begum sought to return to the UK with her new-born son, and the case created widespread controversy.

At the time, then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said that stripping the teen of here citizenship would flout human rights, while SNP home affairs spokeswoman Joanna Cherry said Javid’s decision was “more about his leadership ambitions than security issues or due process”.

Javid faced condemnation when Begum’s child died in Syria, and he was held directly responsible for the baby’s fate by many commentators.

Although he was originally a Remainer, Javid has a Eurosceptic track record dating back to the 1990s, when he was allegedly thrown out of a Tory Party conference for distributing leaflets which opposed Britain’s joining of single currency forerunner, the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

He attracted ridicule for tweeting that he “would not allow” Scotland to hold another independence referendum and was also snubbed by the PM from attending a dinner with President Trump, a move which some suggested was related to his Muslim heritage.

Ruth Davidson, who introduced Javid to the stage at his campaign launch, backed his Brexit plan.

She said that the Home Secretary had the “most credible plan” for Brexit out of all the leadership contenders, adding: “This is not a phrase I use very often. But he’s the man for me.”

However, SNP Cabinet Office spokesperson Tommy Shepard said that the links between Javid’s campaign and Ian Taylor raised serious questions over his credibility and Davidson’s decision to back him.

“The links between Vitol and notorious Serbian warlord Arkan are both well-known and widely reported.

“Arkan was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for ‘wilfully causing great suffering, cruel treatment, murder, wilful killing, rape and other inhumane acts’,” Sheppard said.

“So, it’s beyond belief that the Tory Party continues to accept huge donations from Vitol’s Ian Taylor.

“Sajid Javid should do the right thing. He should hand back all cash received from Mr Taylor – or else face serious questions over his campaign finances,” he added.

“Likewise, given Ruth Davidson’s very public backing for the Javid campaign, she too needs to make an unequivocal statement distancing herself from Ian Taylor – adding her voice to calls to hand the money back.”

Sajid Javid’s campaign team refused to comment. The Scottish Tories also refused to comment.