Wheat exporter issues bribe apology

Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter has apologised for paying bribes to Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime, in a statement written by its boss and released for the first time by an inquiry into alleged corruption.

In the six-paragraph statement, drafted in December, AWB Ltd’s former managing director Andrew Lindberg acknowledged the wheat exporter made the payments to Saddam as part of the now-discredited United Nations Oil-For-Food programme.