US authorities have homed in on a third BAE Systems executive, issuing a subpoena to Alan Garwood, the defence contractor's business development director.

Garwood was served with the papers while in transit at a US airport.

Until last year, Garwood led a team of 600 civil servants at the Ministry of Defence's Defence Export Service Organisation.

Among the deals he worked on was the sale of Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia. He was seconded to the MoD from BAE in 2002.

He is the third senior BAE executive to attract the interest of US authorities.

Mike Turner, chief executive of BAE, and Sir Nigel Rudd, a non-executive director, were subpoenaed by Department of Justice officials about two weeks ago as part of a probe into corruption allegations surrounding BAE's £43 billion Al-Yamamah contract with Saudi Arabia.

British investigations into the affair of alleged kickbacks to Saudi officials were halted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair who said they would have made a "complete wreckage" of relations with the Arab kingdom.

The US probe was launched as that Serious Fraud Office inquiry was dropped.

The action against the executives could be an attempt to put pressure on the UK government to release information held by the Home Office and MoD. The Home Office has been considering a request for assistance from the Department of of Justice since last year.

BAE has always denied any wrongdoing in the Saudi deal.

Should the Department findBAE Systems bribed officials to secure the Al-Yamamah deal, it would impose fines and lose net profits from the deal.

But the harshest blow would be a likely ban from bidding for US Government contracts, where BAE now gets more than half its business.