Archer cleared after charity probe

The British Red Cross said today that Jeffrey Archer has been cleared of claims that millions of pounds for the Kurds had gone missing from a charity appeal.

An audit by KPMG on behalf of the British Red Cross has found "no evidence of misappropriation" they said today. Lady Archer said she and her family were "delighted but not surprised" by the news.

The Red Cross have long insisted that the disgraced peer was innocent, but Scotland Yard acted after Liberal Democrat Euro MP Baroness Nicholson asked for an investigation into the former Tory deputy chairman's involvement in the Simple Truth Appeal, which raised money for Kurdish refugees in 1991.

Lady Archer said today: "Baroness Nicholson, whose allegations have wasted much time and caused much unjustified distress, should surely now accept KPMG's findings."

Archer, jailed for four years for perjury this year, had claimed the appeal raised £57million for dispossessed Kurds in northern Iraq during the Gulf war. It was alleged that only a fraction of this sum reached the Kurds and that up to £12million was unaccounted for.

Archer was reclassified and moved to a jail with a harsher regime when police began their investigation. He has now been moved to an open prison in Norfolk.