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Ex-U.N. Oil-For-Food Chief Charged
Jan 16, 12:46 PM (ET)
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) - The former United Nations oil-for-food chief was charged Tuesday with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in the scandal-tainted humanitarian program.
The charges against Benon Sevan, 69, of Nicosia, Cyprus, were contained in a rewrite of an indictment stemming from the scandal over the operation set up from 1996 to 2003 to permit the Iraqi government to sell oil primarily to buy food and medicine for suffering Iraqis.
The program was designed to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions, but authorities said it was corrupted by bureaucrats, oil tycoons and Saddam Hussein after the former Iraqi leader was allowed to choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.
Sevan, who had worked for the U.N. for 40 years, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Federal and state prosecutors also announced the indictment of Ephraim Nadler, 79, of Manhattan, on the same charges. He helped a coconspirator obtain the right to buy Iraqi oil under the program in exchange for commissions from the oil sales and then funneled approximately $160,000 of these oil commissions to Sevan, the indictment said. Nadler is the brother-in-law of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070116/D8MMGV381.html
Jan 16, 12:46 PM (ET)
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) - The former United Nations oil-for-food chief was charged Tuesday with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in the scandal-tainted humanitarian program.
The charges against Benon Sevan, 69, of Nicosia, Cyprus, were contained in a rewrite of an indictment stemming from the scandal over the operation set up from 1996 to 2003 to permit the Iraqi government to sell oil primarily to buy food and medicine for suffering Iraqis.
The program was designed to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions, but authorities said it was corrupted by bureaucrats, oil tycoons and Saddam Hussein after the former Iraqi leader was allowed to choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.
Sevan, who had worked for the U.N. for 40 years, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Federal and state prosecutors also announced the indictment of Ephraim Nadler, 79, of Manhattan, on the same charges. He helped a coconspirator obtain the right to buy Iraqi oil under the program in exchange for commissions from the oil sales and then funneled approximately $160,000 of these oil commissions to Sevan, the indictment said. Nadler is the brother-in-law of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070116/D8MMGV381.html