Friday, October 16, 2009

Trafigura gives in: Minton report published

From the Daily Telegraph site this evening:

A suppressed report which details how an oil company dumped toxic waste in Africa that may cause serious burns and even death has been released following a parliamentary row over freedom of speech.

The study commissioned just weeks after the incident in West Africa concluded that the dumping would have been illegal under European pollution laws and suggests that the “likely cause” of the illness reported by locals was the “significant release” of potentially lethal gas.

The report had been kept secret after Trafigura, one of the world’s largest independent oil trading firms, obtained a "super injunction" that threatened the centuries-old privilege of newspapers to report what MPs can say freely in the Commons.

On Friday night, as the High Court gagging order was lifted, senior figures at Trafigura admitted their approach may have been “heavy-handed” and insisted it had not been their intention to try to gag Parliament.

Oddly, the Telegraph seems to have beaten the Guardian to the story.

Later. Now you can download the Minton report from the Guardian front page.

2 comments:

James Dowden said...

[raises glass to the Grauniad, Private Eye, and the blogosphere]

John H said...

The BBC stil seem to be cowed. No links and regurgitating references to the report as "Draft" and subject to Legal Privelege. Doesn't look draft to me. At all.

Too many Media luvvies and the right wing blogs see this as a "freedom of the press issue" rather than a "dumping on the weak" issue.