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Texas businessman indicted in oil for food program { April 14 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/international/middleeast/14cnd-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/international/middleeast/14cnd-food.html
April 14, 2005
Texas Businessman Indicted in Iraq Oil-for-Food Program
By TERENCE NEILAN
A Texas businessman, as well as a British and a Bulgarian citizen, have been indicted in New York for reportedly paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq as part of the United Nations oil-for-food program.
The money was otherwise intended for relief purposes, according to a statement issued this morning by the office of the United States Attorney David N. Kelley.
In a complaint stemming from the same investigation, a South Korean is charged with conspiracy to act in the United States as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government in creating the oil-for-food program.
The Texan, who was not named in the statement, is the second American indicted in the scandal-ridden program.
Many member countries at the United Nations have refused to cooperate fully with a separate inquiry by investigators looking into waste, fraud and mismangement in the oil-for-food program, which was intended to allow Iraq to sell limited quantities of oil in return for humanitarian relief.
The Independent Inquiry Committee, head by Paul A. Volcker, former head of the Federal Reserve, has issued two interim reports of its findings, and a final report is due in midsummer.
In its first interim report, on Feb. 4, the commission found that the former head of the program, Benon V. Sevan, had a "grave and continuing conflict of interest" in helping a friend obtain valuable Iraqi oil contracts and said a second United Nations official, Joseph Stephanides, had violated procurement rules. Both men have been suspended and are in the process of answering United Nations charges against them.
Questions have also been raised about the participation of Kojo Annan, son of the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan. The elder Mr. Annan has was criticized in the most recent interim report on the grounds that he failed to perceive the appearance of a conflict of interest when Kojo Annan was employed by a contractor employed by the program.
Kofi Annan told 1,600 employees gathered in the General Assembly hall on April 6 that there had been "troubling lapses" in the management of the Iraq program but that he was making changes to prevent any recurrence.
On Jan. 18, Samir A. Vincent, an Iraqi-American businessman, pleaded guilty to lobbying influential Americans on behalf of Mr. Hussein without registering as a foreign agent. Mr. Vincent admitted he had secretly been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and granted rights to sell millions of dollars' worth of Iraqi oil, in exchange for working to end United Nations economic sanctions imposed in 1990. He is now cooperating with Mr. Kelley.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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