Rishi Sunak has been accused of being “slippery” in the row over whether the government will hand over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and other documents to the COVID inquiry.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the prime minister should “comply with the inquiry and do it today”.
Mr Streeting told broadcasters: “I think the prime minister looks really slippery today. He says he wants the government to co-operate with the inquiry but the government has been withholding information the inquiry has asked for.
“One minute the government says the messages they have are immaterial; the next minute they’re saying they don’t exist. Which is it?”
The deadline has now been set for 4pm on Thursday 1 June. The Cabinet Office asked for an extension to Monday 5 June as they do not have access to Mr Johnson‘s messages or notebooks, but this was rejected.
Unredacted messages sent and received by Boris Johnson between 1 January 2020 and 24 February 2022.
Unredacted diaries for Mr Johnson between 1 January 2020 and 24 February 2022
Copies of 24 unredacted notebooks filled in by Mr Johnson between 1 January 2020 and 24 February 2022
Unredacted messages sent and received by adviser Henry Cook between 1 January 2020 and 24 February 2022.
The inquiry wants messages – even from group chats – about the government response to COVID, as well as contact with a list of certain experts, ministers, civil servants and advisers
This is despite saying in their original appeal against the order that there was “unambiguously irrelevant” material in the redacted parts of messages sent to the inquiry.
When the Cabinet Office lodged the appeal on 15 May, it said Mr Johnson’s WhatsApp messages had not yet been received by the government.
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A spokesman for the former prime minister said today that he had “no objection” to sending the material to the inquiry.
Mr Johnson has written to the Cabinet Office to demand the government requests in writing access to his messages and notes – which he says has not happened yet.
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PM: Govt ‘cooperating with COVID inquiry’
Sources close to Mr Johnson say Cabinet Office officials have visited his office in person to examine notebooks within the past few weeks.
If the government does not abide by the new deadline on Thursday, Lady Hallett has ordered that a statement be sent by a “senior civil servant” confirming the Cabinet Office does not have the requested information, as well as a chronology of the government’s contacts with Mr Johnson about the requests and whether the government has ever had the data.
Breaking a section 21 order could see the government face criminal proceedings, and there is also potential for a court battle over whether the information should be passed to the inquiry.
Speaking shortly before the inquiry’s announcement, Mr Sunak said the “government is carefully considering its position, but it is confident in the approach that it’s taking”.
But Mr Streeting said the prime minister’s “slipperiness” gave “the impression of someone who is not fully committed to transparency, openness, accountability”.
Asked whether he was concerned about a potential “cover up”, Mr Streeting said: “I think the fact the prime minister looks so slippery today will be a cause of deep anxiety to people who are following the inquiry closely – not least those families who have suffered bereavement and just want some honesty and some answers.”
The battle between the parties centres on messages Mr Johnson sent and received, as well as his diaries and his notebooks from during the pandemic.
Image: Baroness Hallett opens preliminary hearing for COVID-19 inquiry
Lady Hallett made an order under section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 for the material to be handed over by the Cabinet Office.
Messages to and from former adviser Henry Cook were also included in the legal action.
It is this order which has now been extended.
Lady Hallett highlighted in her explanation that the Cabinet Office redacted material about the policing of Sarah Everard protests during the period of restrictions – something she said was “not a promising start”.
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New deadline for ex-PM’s COVID messages
She later obtained the messages in full.
She also identified communications – which have still only been seen in their redacted form – that she considers are “in fact relevant to my investigation”.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “It now appears that vital evidence has gone missing. It must be found and handed over as requested if the whiff of a cover-up is to be avoided and bereaved families are to get the answers they deserve.”
Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader, added: “The public has waited long enough already to get the truth. The inquiry’s work mustn’t be delayed any longer because of endless chaos in the Conservative Party.”
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison.
The former president, 70, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, but was cleared of all other charges in the trial over the alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by the government of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
The court in Paris found him guilty of criminal conspiracy, but not guilty of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.
In a surprise move, the judge said he would be jailed regardless of whether he appeals the verdict, which usually suspends sentencing. He was not sent straight to jail, however, with the start date of his sentence yet to be decided.
Sarkozy denied the charges during the three-month court case, which he claimed was politically motivated.
He was accompanied to Thursday’s hearing by his wife, singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and his three sons.
Overall, the verdict suggested the former president and his co-defendants had conspired to seek Libyan campaign funding – but not that he was directly involved or that money was actually used.
The judge said Sarkozy had allowed his associates to reach out to Libyan authorities “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya for the purpose of securing campaign financing”.
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Earlier this year, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honour medal, France‘s highest accolade.
In 2021, he was found guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate for information about a legal case in which he was implicated in 2014. Two years later, he was sentenced to a year on electronic tag, of which six months were suspended. After three months, it was ruled he could remove the monitoring device due to his age.
In another case last year, he was convicted of illegal campaign financing during his unsuccessful 2012 re-election bid, having spent almost twice the allowed amount. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months suspended.
He has appealed the sentence and is awaiting the outcome from France’s highest court – the Court of Cassation.
Despite his criminal record, Sarkozy has remained an influential figure within the French Right.
Image: Nicolas Sarkozy (right) and Muammar Gaddafi (second right) in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Light shed on French-Libyan relations during Gaddafi’s rule
During the Gaddafi finance trial, he described the case against him as a “plot” staged by the “Gaddafi clan” and other “liars and crooks”.
He claimed it was revenge for his decision to call for Gaddafi to be removed from office.
The allegations stretch back to 2011 when a Libyan news agency reported that Gaddafi had said Libya had secretly sent millions of euros to Sarkozy’s election campaign.
A year later, French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it claimed to be a piece of Libyan intelligence referencing a £43.7m funding agreement, which Sarkozy rubbished and saw him sue for defamation.
The court ruled on Thursday that it “now appears most likely that this document was a forgery”.
In the current case, Sarkozy had 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.
Two of them, Claude Gueant and Brice Hortefeux, both among his closest confidantes during his presidency, were also found guilty of criminal association but not guilty on other charges.
The trial shed light on France’s relationship with Libya during the 2000s, when Gaddafi, who was toppled and killed in 2011, was trying to restore diplomatic ties with Western countries.
It also saw investigators scrutinise several trips to Libya made by people in Sarkozy’s inner circle while he was still interior minister between 2005 and 2007 – including his chief-of-staff.
In a key development in 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart he had delivered suitcases full of cash from Tripoli to the French interior ministry while Sarkozy was in charge – but later retracted the claims.
Mr Takieddine, who was one of the co-defendants, died aged 75 on Tuesday in Beirut, according to his lawyer Elise Arfi said. He fled to Lebanon in 2020 and did not attend the trial.
His change-of-heart is now subject to a separate investigation into alleged witness interference – but it has not yet gone to trial.
Inside a dimly-lit storeroom in Tine’s central market, near the border of North Darfur and Chad, we are shown a haunting video.
Young men crouched on the ground and covered in sand stare up at a phone camera helplessly.
A loud male voice interrogates them and demands to know what they are smuggling into Al Fashir, the regional capital besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
One responds with “rice” and another says “pasta”.
“I will swat all of you like flies,” the man says from behind the camera, before pointing his gun at each of their heads and feigning lethal headshots in a mock execution.
We are shown the clip by Ahmed* and Hassan*, who are using pseudonyms for their protection.
The young men in the video are just one of the many teams they coordinate to smuggle food and lifesaving supplies into Sudan‘s Al Fashir, where around 900,000 people are being forced into famine by an RSF blockade while being bombarded by deadly drone strikes and shelling.
The dangers of this work are extreme as smuggling routes rapidly open and close, and battles for control rage inside the city.
Some of the teams they send make it to Al Fashir, but many do not. The three men in the video are still missing and are feared dead.
“The situation in Al Fashir is catastrophic – you cannot afford to watch and do nothing,” says Ahmed in front of a stack of flour sacks piled up to the ceiling.
“We have no option but to offer what we can for people to eat and survive the shelling.”
Image: The young smugglers are trying to distribute vital supplies
As we drive to the storeroom, their phones constantly ping with messages, voice notes and phone calls.
As Ahmed fires back a voice note requesting costings on bulk food items, Hassan brings his phone to his ear and listens.
He sighs with frustration and says: “We just received a message from HQ that one of our guys smuggling in insulin hasn’t arrived and was likely killed.
“He has been missing for three days. We have to count him among the dead.”
Hassan tells us they are being targeted by the RSF, adamant to uphold their siege.
“It happens a lot. Three days ago, we had a group of 12 people break up into three teams of four. Two of the teams arrived, but one group never surfaced.”
Image: A map showing the berms – raised banks – surrounding Al Fashir. Pic: Yale School of Public Health
Image: Ahmed* and Hassan* spoke to us on the condition of anonymity
The number of dead is mounting and uncountable. They tell us they have lost 30 volunteers in the first week of September alone.
Their network of fearless first responders was born out of the resistance committees created to organise and assist targeted protesters during Sudan’s 2019 revolution.
Now, they carry the burden of feeding and treating war-impacted civilians across the country through the Nobel Peace Prize nominated Emergency Response Rooms.
The battle for Al Fashir – and Sudan
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as they push to claim full control of the Darfur region as a base for their parallel government, after the military recaptured the capital Khartoum and other key sites in central Sudan.
Close to a million people are facing famine in Al Fashir and surrounding camps as the RSF enforces a full blockade, launching armed attacks on volunteers and aid workers risking their lives to bring in food.
Inside the city, thousands are bombarded by almost daily shelling from surrounding RSF troops.
The RSF have physically reinforced their siege with a berm – a raised earth mound. First spotted by Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, the berm is visible from space.
The Sudan war started in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the RSF broke out in Khartoum.
The US special envoy to Sudan estimates that 150,000 have been killed, but the exact figure is unknown. Close to 12 million people have been displaced.
Several mediation attempts have failed to secure a humanitarian access mechanism or any lulls in fighting.
The RSF are not just targeting these civilian volunteers but also aid convoys attempting to deliver food.
On 3 June, a World Food Programme (WFP)-UNICEF aid convoy approaching Al Fashir was attacked, with five convoy personnel being killed and several food trucks destroyed.
Last month, another WFP convoy approaching an RSF-held town, Mellit, was attacked, and three trucks were set on fire.
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6:00
‘Where is the humanity?’
Near a makeshift displacement shelter in Tine, 24 WFP trucks full of food are parked at a transshipment point under the sun.
The trucks will set off to towns in North Darfur that are controlled by the RSF: Mellit, Kutum and Korma.
Korma is only 43 miles from Al Fashir, but aid trucks will not brave facing the RSF by approaching the besieged capital.
WFP Sudan’s country director Laurent Bukera says: “For months, the UN has been trying to secure guarantees for a humanitarian pause allowing safe delivery to the city.
“We received clearances from the government of Sudan’s humanitarian aid commission to deliver aid into Al Fashir and are renewing these, but the RSF has yet to communicate support for a humanitarian pause.”
Image: The WFP has struggled to distribute food in Sudan
Volunteers call for aid airdrops
Hassan, Ahmed and other volunteers we met are calling for food air drops, similar to those in Gaza and South Sudan.
“We need safe humanitarian passage for the delivery of aid – by road or by air drop,” says Hassan. “That is the responsibility of the international community as a neutral entity that can navigate the belligerents.”
But navigating these belligerents has proven difficult for mediators and the United Nations.
Since the start of the war in April 2023, there has not been a single humanitarian pause or ceasefire that would allow for the guaranteed safe passage of aid.
“We are exploring every option to get aid into Al Fashir,” says Mr Bukera. “Airdrops are up to 10 times more expensive and extremely risky due to high risk of drone strikes, anti-aircraft weapons and shelling in and around Al Fashir.
“Also with the absence of humanitarian pause, to date, no aircraft and pilot have been willing to take the risk.”
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Until a safe corridor for aid is established, Al Fashir’s young volunteers will continue to face death to get food to their besieged and bombarded relatives in friends inside the city.
“If we don’t do it – it’ll be a slow genocide. So, better to die trying,” says Hassan.
“We have no other option but to take these risks.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s moment in the United Nations General Assembly chamber came a day after he told Sky News that Donald Trump’s language represented a “big shift” in America’s stance on Ukraine.
While it unquestionably represents a shift in position – now claiming Ukraine can take back all of the land lost – big questions remain about Mr Trump‘s personal and material commitment to a Ukrainian victory.
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Zelenskyy tells Sky News Trump has made ‘big shift’
Image: President Zelenskyy addresses the United Nations General Assembly. Pic: AP
Mr Zelenskyy is taking the win that the language represents, but he, more than anyone, knows that Mr Trump can turn on a dime.
And so his speech was a warning, a message and a continued plea for help.
The Ukrainian leader cited history in warning that Russia won’t stop unless it is defeated.
Mr Zelenskyy said: “We have already lost Georgia in Europe. Human rights and the European nature of the state system are only shrinking there.
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“Georgia is dependent on Russia and for many, many years, Belarus has also been moving towards dependence on Russia.”
“Putin will keep driving the war forward, wider and deeper… Ukraine is only the first. Russian drones are already flying across Europe.”
“Europe cannot afford to lose Moldova too,” he said.
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‘NATO should shoot down Russian jets violating airspace’
Drawing on the experience of his country, he warned of what he said was a uniquely dangerous proliferation of weapons.
“We are living through the most destructive arms race in human history,” he said, warning specifically of the dangers of drones which will soon be controlled by artificial intelligence (AI).
But he also warned of the proliferation of the use of violence, whether it be from nation states or from political activists.
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Trump complains of broken escalator and teleprompter at UN
He included these moments not just because he believes they represent a dangerous and tragic shift but because he knows he needs to keep President Trump and his base of support on side. Showing empathy with them is important.
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He spoke in perfect English. Not long ago, he struggled with the language. He knows that now, more than ever, he needs to communicate in the language of those who hold the key to his country’s future.
“Of course, we are doing everything to make sure Europe truly helps, and we count on the United States,” he said.
He closed with a plea to the nations of the world, gathered in the chamber.
“Don’t stay silent while Russia keeps dragging this war on… Please join us in defending life, international law and order,” he said.