The arms giant BAE yesterday agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct, in the face of long-running corruption investigations.

The admissions in the US covered BAE’s huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia and smaller deals in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in central Europe. In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which the development secretary Clare Short said at the time “stank” of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.

The Serious Fraud Office said in its announcement yesterday that some of the £30m penalty BAE was to hand over in the UK would be “an ex gratia payment for the benefit of the people of Tanzania”.

BAE said the deal “draws a line under the past”, and it regretted what it called “the lack of rigor in the past”.Read more at www.guardian.co.uk