[lit-ideas] The UN Solution for Iraq
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:57:10 -0500
Former U.N. oil-for-food head charged with bribery
Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:19pm ET144
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former executive director of the U.N.
oil-for-food program for Iraq and a brother-in-law of a
former U.N. secretary-general have been charged with bribery
and conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to the program, a
U.S. federal prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Former executive director Benon Sevan, the highest ranking
U.N. official to be charged in relation to the program, and
Ephraim Nadler, brother-in-law of Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
were named in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal
court on Tuesday.
Michael Garcia, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of
New York, said in a statement that Sevan, a Cypriot,
allegedly received about $160,000 from Nadler on behalf of
the Iraqi government.
Garcia said the United States had issued warrants for the
arrest of Nadler and Sevan and will seek their arrest and
extradition to New York.
"The allegations in this current indictment that the
executive director of the very program that was created to
provide humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people was involved in
such a scheme demonstrates how pervasive the corruption was
and how that corruption undermined the operation of the
program," Garcia said.
Sevan's lawyer, Eric Lewis, did not immediately return a
call for comment.
The oil-for-food program was designed to soften the blow to
civilians of international sanctions, imposed against Iraq
for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, by allowing Iraq to sell
oil to finance purchases of humanitarian goods.
More than 2,300 companies have been investigated and some
governments accused of having abused the $64 billion
humanitarian program, which ran from 1996 until 2003.
Boutros-Ghali was secretary-general of the United Nations
from 1992 to 1996.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-01-16T171913Z_01_N16195249_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-UN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
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