Western nations are benefiting from corruption across Asia, the ousted prime minister of Pakistan has said in a brave new documentary: Behind Closed Doors.
Powerful western nations have “no incentive” to stop corruption in the global south because they are “benefiting from money stolen from our countries”, Imran Khan has said.
Pakistan’s former prime minister made the claim in an interview given while still in office for a documentary coming out next month.
Khan was forced to step down last April in what he believes was a US-orchestrated plot. He has since survived an assassination attempt.
His testimony on corruption is the centrepiece of Behind Closed Doors, a daring new film by independent director Michael Oswald and producer Murtaza Mehdi.
Oswald is known for his previous work on tax havens, The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire. That film was watched five million times on YouTube and bought by Netflix.
Despite, or perhaps because of that success, Oswald struggled to interview many British officials for his latest project, which targets “corruption in high places and those who enable it”.
A worrying number of UK institutions responsible for anti-money laundering refused to speak to the filmmakers, in stark contrast to the response they received from a foreign head of state.
Review of Behind Closed Doors by Movie Steve
Michael Oswald’s latest lid-lifting documentary, Behind Closed Doors, tells the story of ruling elites siphoning wealth off from developing countries and using it to buy high-end property in London. It is a story of familiar elements – the super rich and the London “laundromat” where dirty money is washed clean, plus an acquiescent British government and its supine crime agencies. Thanks to assiduous digging, Oswald and collaborator/writer/producer Murtaza Mehdi reveal precisely how the laundromat works and point the finger at the guilty.