The Serious Fraud Office confirmed today that the major allegation in today's Guardian newspaper about George Galloway - regurgitated by the Evening Standard - was totally fallacious.

The Guardian claimed in a headline ('Met inquiry into Galloway recommended') and in the first paragraph of the only story on Page 3 that the SFO has 'recommended that police open an investigation, and talks are currently taking place with the Crown Prosecution Service'. In fact the SFO has cleared the Bethnal Green MP of corruption over the Oil for Food Programme. And the senior press officer for the SFO, David Jones, denied categorically that any recommendation to investigate Galloway had been handed on to the Metropolitan police.

'That's simply not the case. You would have to ask the Guardian why they ran that,' he said.

The co-author of The Guardian article, Rob Evans, was unable to justify the assertion or produce a source for it. He referred only to a sentence from a police statement which said that the Met were 'considering a request to investigate the matter'. If true - and in the circumstances it seems unlikely - then anyone can make such a request and the SFO are clearly not the source of it.

The absence of facts, or of checking (no one at Galloway's office or at Respect was contacted) did not, however, prevent the Standard from regurgitating the story.

Galloway has written to the newspaper's editor, Alan Rusbridger, and a separate complaint has been laid with The Guardian Readers' Editor Ian Mayes. After these responses further action will be decided.

Further information: Ron McKay of 07980 675998