Former oil-for-food chief may face corruption charges

THE former head of the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq could face charges after a committee investigating the tainted programme said it had found enough evidence of a kickback scheme to support prosecution.

The UN-backed committee released its findings on the former programme director Benon Sevan on Monday.

Hours earlier, another UN official involved in the $64 million (€52m) humanitarian programme was charged in Manhattan with soliciting a bribe from a company seeking an oil-for-food contract.

Russian Alexander Yakovlev was the first UN official to be charged in the scandal. He was also accused of wire fraud and money laundering for accepting nearly $1m (€0.8m) in bribes from UN contractors in his work outside the programme.

Mr Yakovlev pleaded guilty yesterday to the charges but was released on bail. He could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the three counts.

Mr Sevan, meanwhile, a 67-year-old Turkish-Cypriot, denies the allegations against him.

The Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, accused Mr Sevan of steering lucrative Iraqi oil contracts to a Swiss petroleum company and accepting $147,184 (€119,024) in kickbacks.

It said his finances were "precarious" before the kickbacks started. Mr Sevan said on Sunday he was resigning his UN post.

The committee also reported that it had uncovered enough evidence to prosecute the Egyptian owners of the Swiss firm, both relatives of former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Fred Nadler, who is a director of African Middle East Petroleum and a brother-in-law of Mr Boutros-Ghali, and Fakhry Abdelnour, the firm's president and a cousin of the former secretary-general are suspected of helping Mr Sevan in the kickback scheme.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan has waived the diplomatic immunity of Mr Yakovlev and Mr Sevan.

The oil-for-food programme, launched in December 1996 to help ordinary Iraqis cope with UN sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was one of the largest humanitarian programmes in history.