Wellington - New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters' political future was on the line Tuesday after an expatriate billionaire donor to his political party gave damning testimony to Parliament's powerful privileges committee.

Owen Glenn, who lives in Monaco, flew home to tell the committee that Peters personally asked him for money to help pay legal fees after the 2005 general election and he donated 100,000 New Zealand dollars (66,000 US dollars).

He produced a telephone record showing that he had called Peters' personal mobile telephone on December 14, 2005 to tell him that he would contribute the money, and a copy of an email from Peters' attorney timed six minutes later confirming "your conversation with my client" which gave details of the account to send the money.

Glenn also produced an affidavit from racehorse trainer Paul Moroney who said he was present at a bloodstock sale in January 2006 when Peters thanked Glenn for the donation.

Peters, who has stood down from his portfolio pending investigations into donations to the nationalist New Zealand First party he founded and leads, has insisted for months that he knew nothing about Glenn's donation until his lawyer told him it had gone into a blind trust fund in July.

Peters, 63, is scheduled to give evidence to the privileges committee, which is investigating whether his party failed to declare the donation as it was obliged by law to do, on Wednesday night.

He is also subject to separate investigations about donations to his party by the Senior Fraud Office and the police.

Peters' party supported Prime Minister Helen Clark's Labour-led minority government after the 2005 election in return for his foreign affairs portfolio but stayed out of the formal coalition.

Clark revealed recently that Glenn had told her about the donation in February but accepted Peters' denial "as an honourable Member of Parliament" and said she believed there must be an "innocent explanation" of the conflicting claims.

Clark, who must hold a general election by mid-November which current polls say she is certain to lose, has taken over Peters' portfolio temporarily pending the outcome of the investigations.

Duncan Garner, political editor of the TV3 channel, said that Glenn's testimony appeared to be a "killer blow" for Peters. "His position that he never knew about the money has been shot to pieces," he said. (dpa)