LONDON // Britain's top civil servant is to quiz a businessman over whether or not he made money by accompanying his close friend, the defence secretary Liam Fox, on a string of official overseas visits.
Adam Werritty, a consultant employed neither by the government nor the Conservative Party, was present in an unofficial capacity on 18 of the 48 trips Mr Fox has made since taking office in May of last year.
In addition, Mr Werritty, who was Mr Fox's best man at his wedding in 2005 and who previously had shared an apartment with the MP, arranged and attended a meeting between the defence secretary and a defence contractor in Dubai in June without any ministry of defence officials attending.
Mr Werritty, 34, who distributed business cards describing himself as an "adviser" to Mr Fox, also accompanied his friend on numerous other trips including Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Australia and Washington.
He was also present when Mr Fox, 50, travelled to Tampa in Florida for a meeting of Centcom (US Central Command) attended by General John R Allen, the commander-designate of the mission in Afghanistan.
A spokesman for David Cameron, the British prime minister, admitted that the defence secretary had made "serious mistakes" in allowing his friend to accompany him on trips, as well as visiting him 20 times at his ministry office.
The government inquiry into the affair, originally in the hands of the defence ministry, has now been taken over by Sir Gus O'Donnell, the chief secretary to the cabinet and the UK's top civil servant.
He will be interviewing Mr Werritty to determine if he benefited financially from his relationship with Mr Fox.
The defence secretary, who has apologised but insists he has done no wrong, was directly asked in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon if Mr Werritty had made money from the trips. In reply, he said that his friend "was not dependent on any transactional behaviour to maintain his income".
Meanwhile, the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai has attacked the Daily Mail newspaper for an "irresponsible piece of journalism" on Monday by suggesting there was something untoward about a meeting Mr Fox attended there in 2007.
The meeting, requested by Mr Werritty when Mr Fox was the opposition defence spokesman, was simply to explore regional issues, the think tank said in a statement.
