The South African President told The Times that the decision had left his country tainted and gave warning that he would be pursuing the matter personally with Mr Blair.

He disclosed that he had received a recent request for information from the British authorities and had ensured all their demands were met, even though he strongly disputed the basis for the inquiry.

Mr Mbeki spoke out in a discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the fight against corruption in Africa. He voiced fears that corruption inquiries focused disproportionately on African countries rather than the Western companies on the other side of the equation.

Afterwards he told The Times: “It does puzzle me why a strategic interest with regard to the work of BAE, there would be a strategic interest that would arise with one country and does not arise with other countries.

“I am puzzled. It has not been explained. Nevertheless, we have not used that to say we will not cooperate with them but maybe one day they will explain why it is possible to make a difference of this kind.

“We have received a request from the British Government for legal assistance to deal with information transferred by BAE to some people in South Africa. We will cooperate with regard to that because we are very interested to end the perception of any corrupt activity.”

During the Davos session yesterday Mr Mbeki said: “The question of corruption [arose] more recently over a British company involved in supplying us with aircraft for the airforce.

“Of course I know that we were not but what is interesting about that is, though the acceptee is bought in order to take certain decisions, you don’t have an investigation about the alleged buyer, you have investigation about the ones who were bought.”

He added: “It comes out of this matter in the context of an investigation of an arms deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia. At some point the British Government intervenes and stops the investigation. I think they said in the national interest or something like that.”

When the inquiry was dropped by the Serious Fraud Office in December, Mr Blair took full responsibility.

BAE, Britain’s biggest manufacturer, was under investigation for allegedly setting up a slush fund to bribe Saudi officials during the 1980s. BAE has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

The alleged bribes from Britain’s prime defence contractor were part of the £40 billion al-Yamamah contract for BAE to supply the Royal Saudi Airforce with 200 Tornado fighter jets. The SFO investigation was later widened to include the company’s activities in other countries. This week the Attor-ney-General insisted that the other investigations over its activities in Romania, South Africa, the Czech Republic, Tanzania and Chile would be pursued “vigorously”.

Last weekend opposition parties in Tanzania demanded the Government there arrest any wrongdoers involved in buying an air traffic control system from BAE. Mr Blair personally approved the deal.

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