Kebabgate - Labour launches inquiry into SECOND donor scandal | the Daily Mail

Has the Labour party got another dodgy donor ready to skewer?

According to the Mail

Mahmoud Khayami, a French citizen, has given a total of £830,000 in the past eight months, making him Labour's biggest individual backer after Lord Sainsbury.

The party said it would launch an investigation after The Mail on Sunday discovered that:

• Khayami made his first donation - of £500,000 - just 24 hours after becoming legally allowed to do so, by having his name added to the Electoral Roll.

• The tycoon - who runs a car dealership in California and has a villa in Cannes - had waited until the age of 77 before adding his name to the roll.

• Khayami is a close friend of Labour-supporting "fixer" Anthony Bailey, whose clients have included Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime, and whose own £500,000 donation was rejected by Labour because of fears it had come from foreign sources.

Khayami made his first donation on May 2 this year.

But The Mail on Sunday has discovered he only became a "permissible" donor on May 1, when he first appeared on the Electoral Register.

Had he made the payment 48 hours earlier both he and the Labour Party would have been committing a criminal offence.

Even though his name is on the register, he is permitted to vote only in local and European ballots, not general elections.

Commentators said that while he was thus technically qualified to make party donations, the fact he had done so meant Labour was 'sailing close to the wind' on donation rules.

Sailing close to the wind may just be an understatement!

Exclusive: Labour to launch an inquiry into SECOND donor scandal | the Daily Mail