Ex-Tory leader Lord Howard agrees to speak to fraud investigators over corruption probe at oil firm he chairs

Fraud investigators are set to speak to Tory peer Michael Howard as they mount a corruption probe at an oil firm he leads.

The former Tory leader is the chairman of the board of SOMA Oil and Gas, which is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

SOMA insists there is ‘no suspicion whatsoever’ attached to Lord Howard, who led the Conservative party to defeat as Michael Howard in the 2005 election.

A spokesman added it is ‘confident that there is no basis to the allegation’, which relates to claims of corruption in Somalia.

The firm was founded in 2013 to find new oil wells after a turbulent period in the African nation’s history.

Somalia’s first formal parliament for two decades was sworn in a year earlier after battles with Al-Shabab Islamists and a two-year famine that killed nearly 260,000 people.