Money man says senator in the clear  By Malcolm Brown March 19,
2005  The man at the centre of the Lightfoot affair, Simko
Halmet, said yesterday that he had been totally responsible for
the donation of $US20,000 ($25,300) in Iraq and that the West
Australian Liberal senator Ross Lightfoot had nothing to do with
it.  Mr Halmet, who describes himself as the Australian
representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a
representative of the Kurdish Regional Government in Australia,
said there had been no currency smuggling involved and he
believed that the donation had breached no rules.  Woodside
Petroleum, while reviewing its investment in northern Iraq last
July, had decided to make a donation to a hospital in the town
of Halabja, Mr Halmet said.  "They did not have the money just
then, so they decided to give it to me, on the grounds that I
was the Kurdistan representative in Australia," he said.  "In
Iraq there is no banking system, no internet banking and no
transfer facilities. The only way to get