British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday demanded an urgent report into claims that his defence minister allowed a close friend to influence government business, while offering him his full support. Cameron's office said he did not want to wait until an internal Ministry of Defence (MoD) inquiry reports back on the allegations against Liam Fox in a fortnight, but wanted a preliminary report setting out the facts by Monday.
However, a spokeswoman for Downing Street told AFP that Fox, a member of the prime minister's Conservative party, still had Cameron's "full confidence". Fox ordered the MoD inquiry on Friday into claims that his former flatmate and best man, Adam Werritty, posed as his advisor and had privileged access to him despite having no official government role or security clearance. But the row intensified with new allegations in Saturday's newspapers that Werritty had brokered a meeting in Dubai in June between Fox and a company hoping to sell phone call encryption technology to the British military.
The claims overshadowed Fox's first visit to Libya on Friday and Saturday, during which he announced £500,000 (580,000 euros, $778,000) new funding for the National Transitional Council's fight against arms proliferation.
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