BBC presenter Clive Myrie has made thousands doing speaking gigs for a firm linked to weapons suppliers arming Israel.
The news anchor was paid up to £10,000 for speaking engagements about his career to employees of Quilter Cheviot, an asset management company.
It has investments with BAE Systems and Raytheon, both of which supply weapons or parts to the Israeli military, according to the news website Deadline.
Both firms have come under intense scrutiny since Israel began its brutal assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas attacks of October 7.
Amnesty International and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign told Deadline that Myrie’s work for Quilter Cheviot raised questions about his judgment and put the BBC’s impartiality at risk.
A BBC spokesperson told the site: “We publish the external paid-for work of on-air journalists for transparency and every event is approved in line with our editorial guidelines.”
The editorial rules state that speaking engagements should not “compromise the authority, impartiality or integrity of presenters.”
The site reported that Quilter’s investments in Raytheon and BAE Systems were relatively small representing £1.1 million and £37.6m respectively of the £28.1 billion in assets it has under management.
A Quilter spokesperson said: “We invest in a wide range of companies across a number of different sectors on behalf of our clients.
"We take the stewardship of our clients’ assets very seriously and engage regularly with the companies we invest in on their behalf.
"Should any clients want to avoid investing in any companies associated with the Middle East conflict, we exclude these firms from their portfolios.
“We automatically exclude defence companies from the sustainable and ethical investment funds that we manage and as such neither of these companies [RTX and BAE Systems] are held by investors who have a preference for this style of investing.”
BAE Systems and Raytheon were approached for comment.
