THE lawyer acting for freed nurse Lucille McLauchlan said last night that he had authorised the release of #700,000 ''blood money'' to the brother of murder victim Yvonne Gilford.

The money, which will go to Frank Gilford, has lain in an Australian bank since it was raised by a consortium of British companies and individuals with economic interests in Saudi Arabia.

Mr William Boyle said yesterday: ''I had a telephone call from Australian lawyers today, looking for authority to release the money, and I gave them the authority. But I do not know if anything can happen at the Saudi end to interfere with that.''

It had been reported that the money transfer could be held up by possible legal action against Mr Gilford after the Saudi lawyer acting for the nurses during their trial claimed he breached the terms of the blood money settlement.

Salah al-Hejailan confirmed yesterday he planned to sue Mr Gilford for more than #1m, claiming the ''mental torture'' he had inflicted on McLauchlan and Deborah Parry in demanding blood money amounted to ''blackmail''.

But Mr Boyle added that Mr Al-Hejailan had no authority over the women since their return to the UK and he had not been instructed by McLauchlan to take action against Mr Gilford.

He said: ''Lucille's view is that it is not her money and she is not keen to see Mr Gilford getting it, but she does not feel she can interfere. She does not know who raised the money but she is very grateful to them.''

Mr Gilford intends to keep #300,000, with the rest going to an Adelaide hospital for a ward dedicated to his sister.

Under Islamic Sharia law, a murder victim's next-of-kin can agree to the death penalty being waived by accepting a payment.

Meanwhile, Labour MP George Galloway called last night for an investigation into BBC1's Panorama programme on the two freed nurses. He alleged that the programme, broadcast on the night the nurses arrived back in Britain, was racist.

But this was firmly rejected by the BBC, which defended the documentary, screened last Thursday night.

The programme included actors re-enacting the nurses' claims of how they were mistreated by the Saudi police when they were interrogated over the murder and the theft of Miss Gilford's bank card.

Much of it was based on diaries kept by the nurses during and after their interrogation.

It included an interview with Parry, who protested her innocence and told of her horror when she heard on the radio in her cell that she was to be beheaded.

Mr Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, said: ''This programme was tabloid television at its worst.

''The portrayal of the nurses as white Anglo-Saxon innocents abroad and the Arabs on the programme as corpulent, sweaty, venal thugs was a racist caricature likely to encourage racial hatred.''

He said the programme had ''abandoned all pretence of balance in dealing with the controversy''.

A BBC spokesman said: "The Saudi authorities were given an opportunity to participate in the programme last December and again last week, but they declined. They were told the nature of the programme."

He added: "It is for the Broadcasting Standards Commission to decide whether Mr Galloway's complaint is valid."

The programme had taken almost a year to make and had included the nurses' description of what happened to them when they were interrogated, he added.

"We don't believe it was unfair," the spokesman said.

Mr Galloway has also initiated a Press Complaints Commission inquiry into the payments made by the Mirror Group and Express newspapers to the nurses for their stories.