Iraqi citizens sue over oil-for-food programme

Iraqi citizens are suing a prominent European bank and an Australian wheat exporter, saying they were cheated out of humanitarian goods when the companies permitted the United Nations oil-for-food programme to be corrupted.

A New York-based group, which has filed the $200m (€152m) lawsuit, sought class-action status on behalf of northern Iraqis, It said the bank, BNP Paribas, and AWB Limited, the largest humanitarian goods provider under the oil-for-food programme, cheated the citizens of Iraq from June 10, 1999, to June 3, 2003.

According to the lawsuit, filed yesterday in US District Court in Manhattan, residents of the Irbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah areas of Iraq claimed they did not receive the full benefits to which they were entitled.

The lawsuit said the companies stole from the Iraqis "by engaging in a brazen kickback scheme" in which money earmarked for the benefit of Iraqis were instead improperly transferred "into the coffers of Saddam Hussein's corrupt Iraqi regime or used to indemnify goods suppliers, including AWB, for the bribes they had paid Iraq".