Geldof Demands Bbc Dismissals

The ex Boomtown Rats star wants Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service, Current Affairs Editor Andrew Whitehead and editor Martin Plaut, who carried out the report, to be dismissed following the broadcaster's "total collapse of standards and systems".

The dispute began last week (ends07Mar10) after a BBC programme suggested that 95 per cent of the $100 million (£62 million) raised by the 1985 gigs was used to arm militants in the country.

But in a new column in Britain's Guardian newspaper, Geldof challenges the accusations, writing, "Where were all the dead people then? If no one was getting food, why was nobody dying? That would have been one of the first questions I'd have asked...

"Why did alarm bells not go off early on in this sorry tale? Where were the checks, balances, neutrality, even-handedness? They all failed at the World Service."

And Geldof is also contemplating taking the matter to court: "We will also take a view on what, if any, legal action we may take against... the World Service in general. Martin Plaut, Andrew Whitehead and Peter Horrocks should be fired. There should be an immediate investigation into what went wrong, steps should be taken to rectify the identified faults and the World Service must work very, very hard to re-establish its trust and hard-won reputation as the world broadcaster of excellence."