Posted on 04/14/2005 8:36:01 PM PDT by Allan
UN linked to Iraqi oil-for-food agent By Mark Turner in New York Published: April 14 2005 14:40 | Last updated: April 14 2005 23:30
The United Nations suffered a further blow on Thursday when US authorities revealed that at least one high-ranking official in the organisation might have been bribed in connection with the Iraq oil-for-food programme by a South Korean lobbyist for the Baghdad government.
The disclosure, in a complaint by the US attorney for the southern district of New York, came as criminal charges were also brought against three businessmen linked to Bayoil, a Texan oil company said to have played a “pivotal” role in subverting the humanitarian relief scheme.
The indictments, which target allegedly central figures in the scandal, mark a significant step forward by investigating authorities. They follow two damaging reports carried out by a separate UN-appointed independent inquiry led Paul Volcker which found severe flaws in the oversight of the programme.
According to David Kelley, the attorney, Park Tongsun, a Korean working on behalf of Saddam Hussein's regime, conspired to influence the design of the multi-billion dollar oil-for-food programme in the 1990s.
The charges allege that Mr Park met senior UN officials in New York and Geneva, and received at least $2m for his services from the Iraqi government, delivered in cash in diplomatic pouches.
“It was allegedly understood . . . that some of the money would be used by Park to ‘take care' of [one high-ranking] UN official,” the charges say.
Having never registered in the US as an agent of the Iraqi government, as required by American law, Mr Park, if found guilty, faces a maximum five years in prison, plus a fine. Mr Kelley said on Thursday that Mr Park was believed to be in South Korea.
According to the charges, in 1992 Mr Park started working with an unnamed, co-operative witness, believed to be Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in connection with the investigations.
In February 1993 Mr Park arranged a meeting at the Manhattan home of the high-ranking UN official. In March he met the official again in Manhattan, and in June in Geneva. In late 1995, Mr Park told the witness he needed $10m to “take care” of “his expenses and his people”.
The Iraqi leader subverted UN oil-for-food programme to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks through contracts designed to sell oil at below market price. Go there
In January 1996 he asked for the money to be wired to a bank account in London. The following month Iraq also agreed to pay money to a bank account in the Channel Islands.
Later, when Iraq threatened to cut off funds, Mr Park arranged a meeting in a Manhattan restaurant attended by a second high-ranking UN official. After that official left, Mr Park allegedly told the witness he had used a $5m guarantee to “fund business dealings” with the second official.
The indictment also alleges that Mr Park invested $1m in a Canadian company set up by the son of the second high-ranking UN official, but “the money was lost because this Canadian company failed soon after”.
Separately, David Chalmers, head of Bayoil, a Texas oil company, and two associates were charged with taking part in a scheme to pay “millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime”.
Mr Kelley said Mr Chalmers, John Irving, a London-based oil trader, and Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian resident in the US, “conspired to deflate the official selling price of Iraqi oil” by giving UN overseers “fraudulent information”.
Lawyers for Mr Chalmers and Mr Dionissiev said their clients would plead not guilty.
Ping. Note, once again, there is a Canadian connection in oil-for-food.
ping
Thanks for the ping. I'll link my other thread as it reports the part about two unnamed UN officials and I also linked to another story that provides more background on Park.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1383987/posts
I want to underscore what is stated in the above article: David Kelley was emphatic in his press conference today that they are just beginning this investigation and will keep going until all are held to account.
Also, later in the linked thread I added the earlier guilty plea of Samir Vincent. Vincent worked with Park, I believe and is cooperating with investigators. He also spoke of meeting with a UN official.
Yet, I bet he is still living here legally.
Mark Turner and Claudia Gatti discussed the issue on the John Batchelor program WABC tonight.
According to them
Park Tongsun is out of reach of US justice
since he is a fugitive in South Korea.
(Does this mean South Korea has no extradition treaty with the US?)
Kelley probably knows the names of the two UN officials
having got them from Samir Vincent
('confidential informant' #1)
who is an associate of Park.
The first UN official met with Park and Samir
the second may only have met with Park.
Samir struck a deal with the US attorney's office
a couple of months ago
in which he pleaded guilty
in return for testifying and helping the investigators.
Box 407
35. August 1, 1977: Tongsun Park at King College.
Wonder if it's the same Tongsun Park?
"I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here."
For some backround, click here. From the article:
Like so many American scandals, no one ever quite got to the bottom of Koreagate. It just drifted away with the arrival in the White House of a new Democratic administration, which badly needed the Congressional leadership of Tip OÍNeill--one of the Congressmen implicated in Koreagate. William Safire kept the heat on Tip O'Neill after Jimmy Carter became President, citing a document that the FBI had seized in Tongsun Park's house claiming that prior to O'Neill's April 1974 visit to Seoul, "Mr. O'Neill specifically requested us to provide [fellow] Congressmen with election campaign funds and their wives with necessary expenses." The Justice Department had withheld this document for three months, according to Safire, perhaps because of worries that by-then House Majority Leader O'Neill would be embarrassed.[22]
In July 1978 Safire attacked the Justice Department's handling of Koreagate (for example, waiting until Tongsun Park had fled the country before indicting him), and predicted that its investigation was ending--"not with a bang, but a whimper."[23] Shortly thereafter I happened to sit next to a Justice Department official on an airplane. He told me everyone knew the investigation was being shut down because it had gotten much too close to Congressional Democrats.
Thanks- I'll use that.
Bump.
Wow! A Who's Who of rotters- thanks!
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