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Iraq to sue oil-for-food suspects The Iraqi government has said it will file lawsuits in US courts against firms and people suspected of illegally profiting from a UN programme. The UN oil-for-food programme allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian supplies during UN sanctions from 1996-2003. An inquiry found that 2,200 firms paid $1.8bn in bribes to Iraqi officials. Meanwhile, a US army report has said there was little planning for events after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that the legal action was to recover damages and...

Iraq plans to file suit in a U.S. court against the United Nations for alleged corruption in the oil-for-food program, Iraqi legal sources said Friday. The United Nations established the program in 1995 to allow Iraq to sell oil to global markets in exchange for food and humanitarian supplies without generating revenue to rebuild the Iraqi military in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. The program ended shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the Coalition Provisional Authority assumed responsibility for humanitarian functions. An investigation by the congressional investigative body the Government Accountability Office found loopholes in the...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was again drawn into Tony Rezko's corruption trial on Monday, when the prosecution's star witness placed Obama at a party for an Iraqi-born billionaire who was later barred entry to the United States. Stuart Levine testified under cross-examination that Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended the April 3, 2004, reception for Nadhmi Auchi.

CHICAGO (AP) -- A mysterious billionaire with his hands on a major chunk of Chicago real estate and at least passing familiarity with some of Illinois' top politicians has surfaced in the federal fraud trial of political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Nadhmi Auchi, the world's 279th richest person on the Forbes magazine list, is the founder and CEO of Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holdings. He presides over a business empire that stretches from the shores of the Red Sea through Russia, western Europe and North America. The company boasts investments in banking and finance, hotels, aviation, pharmaceuticals and real estate --...

A recent piece of news has shed new light on what could be another storm for both the Clintons. Like an old shipwreck, the crashing waves are slowly revealing more from beneath the sand. Recently, we were treated to the revelation that an agent of Saddam Hussein's essentially financed a junket to visit Iraq before the war and complain about the sanctions' effect on the poor Iraqi children. (Let's forget for a moment that it turned out that Saddam was actually engaged in a vast criminal enterprise through the oil-for-food program, and was essentially starving his "poor Iraqi children" for...

Madeleine and her Exes by: Malcolm A. Kline, April 11, 2008 When big-name Democrats return to academia after leaving elective or appointive office, they may go through withdrawals. “I’m starting a group of former foreign ministers called ‘Madeleine and her exes,’” the first woman to serve as U. S. Secretary of State said last Tuesday. Currently, Madeleine K. Albright teaches at Georgetown. “This weekend my class is doing a simulation on Iran,” she said at the seminar co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress. “We were doing North Korea but I got tired of that.” Albright addressed a symposium on...

Accused Saddam Agent Says He Met With Hillary at White House By IRA STOLL, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | March 27, 2008 A Michigan man facing federal criminal charges of illegally working for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Intelligence Service says he met with Hillary Clinton at the White House in May 1996. In a 1997 interview with this reporter, Muthanna Hanooti said that at the meeting, Mrs. Clinton was "very receptive" to his request for an easing of the American sanctions on Iraq that were in place at the time. He said Mrs. Clinton "passed a message to the State...

  When a vicious dictator wants a fifth column of Congressmen to run interference, he knows to call the Party of Defeat.  Saddam's Salesmen   By Ben Johnson FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, March 27, 2008 “If being used means that we’re highlighting the suffering of Iraqi children, or any children, then yes, we don’t mind being used.” – Rep. James McDermott, D-WA, on his 2002 trip to Iraq, financed by Saddam Hussein. We’ve long contended the terrorists could not buy better representation than the Democratic Left gives them for free. We never knew how right we were. The media revealed last...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

Obama's Syrian Connection By Andrew Walden FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/11/2008 Most politicians try to keep their financial backers un-indicted until after the election. But Obama’s biggest early sponsor, dual U.S.-Syrian citizen Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, is already indicted by a federal grand jury. Now he is going to trial in a Chicago federal court. Rezko, along with co-defendants Ali Ata and Abdelhamid Chaib, face federal grand jury charges presented in October 2006 by the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. The case centers on allegations of fraud between 2000 and 2004 in the sale of 17 Papa Johns’ Pizza parlors in...

Out on bail awaiting trial, dual US-Syrian citizen, Antoin ‘Tony' Rezko, was rousted out of bed by police pounding on the doors of his Chicago mansion the morning of Monday, January 28. According to the Associated Press: "U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve jailed Rezko...saying he had disobeyed her order to keep her posted on his financial status. Among other things, he failed to tell her about a $3.5 million loan from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after admitting to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 54, and his two corporations, Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd. and Bayoil USA Inc., were sentenced in federal court in Manhattan. Chalmers also was ordered to forfeit $9 million dollars. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in August, weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Wyatt was sentenced to a...

Accused Illinois fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko is in debt by $50 million and relies on "family" handouts of $7,500 a month to pay monthly costs, according to a previously sealed court transcript reviewed by ABC News. Rezko's bleak financial picture raises the question of how the Rezkos were able to buy a vacant lot adjoining the home of Sen. Barack Obama in 2005, at a time Rezko says he was already in deep debt. Rezko also reveals in the testimony, before Judge Amy St. Eve on Jan. 16, 2007, that he already knew he was under federal investigation at the...

UNITED NATIONS - A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States in 2000 as a double agent, says he oversaw an operation that helped Saddam's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program — and allow Russia to skim profits. Tretyakov, former deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, names some names, but sticks mainly to code names. Among the spies...

A third pharmaceutical giant said Sunday it is being investigated by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over alleged breaches of the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Eli Lilly and Company Limited said it had been asked to hand over documents to the SFO, a day after British peer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Anglo-Swedish firm AstraZeneca announced they had received similar requests.

LONDON, England (AP) -- Britain's Serious Fraud Office has demanded documents from three major drug makers in connection with allegations the companies paid bribes to secure lucrative contracts in Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power, the companies said. GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly and Co. Ltd. -- the British affiliate of Indianapolis, Indiana-based Eli Lilly and Co. -- are all accused of violating the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, established in the mid-1990s to ease the impact on Iraqis of sanctions imposed on Saddam's regime after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

UNITED NATIONS — The General Assembly is preparing to put an early end to an in-house panel that has exposed more than $600 million in tainted United Nations contracts and is currently investigating an additional $1 billion in suspect agreements. A budget committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to vote as early as Friday on a resolution that would force the panel to close down its operations in six months. The effort to scuttle the panel is not a budget matter so much as a political one, and it represents the continuing suspicion developing countries have about international intervention...

There are many disturbing issues to contemplate in the world. From the dangers of aggressive Islamofascism to the pomposity and arrogance of the American elected class (and those vying to be included) the world stands witness to myriad threats and power grabs. But two power grabs opens the door for the United Nations to both amass sovereign rights and to fund and assemble a military force under its own banner. That the United Nations is a corrupt and ineffective institution is an understatement. The list of illegal activities and instances of institutionalized bigotry are so numerable that they weave a...

NEW YORK - A Houston oil trader with a minor role in the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal will not go to prison after admitting wrongdoing, a judge said Thursday. Ludmil Dionissiev, 61, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a smuggling charge for helping bring Iraqi oil into the United States in January 2001. In sentencing Dionissiev to two years of probation and ordering him to pay a $5,000 fine, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called him the "least culpable" of those charged. Before he was sentenced, Dionissiev apologized, saying he knew what he was doing was wrong when he committed...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, 83, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on Tuesday for conspiracy in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, becoming the most prominent figure jailed over corruption in the program to buy oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The outspoken self-made oil tycoon was sentenced in Manhattan federal court after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October, four weeks into his criminal trial and just before prosecutors were to rest their case. Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped four other counts against him, cutting short a trial in...

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it was disappointed with a U.S. court decision to sentence a former Russian diplomat to the U.N. to prison for money laundering and fraud. The ministry said in a statement that it would consider demanding Vladimir Kuznetsov be returned to Russia. The former diplomat, who once chaired the United Nations' powerful budget oversight committee, was sentenced Friday to four years and three months in prison by a U.S. district court after being found guilty in March of laundering money from foreign companies seeking U.N. contracts. He was also ordered to pay a $73,000 (€51,500)...

Several months ago, the Pentagon's network and e-mail system fell victim to computer hacking. After an internal investigation, Pentagon officials declared that the hack was perpetrated by the Chinese military. In particular, officials said the attack "was by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) and that it led to the shutdown of a computer system serving the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates." Now, a Chinese company with ties to the country's military, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and the Taliban will gain access to U.S. defense-network technology under a proposed merger.According to a story in the Washington Times, Huawei Technologies...

NEW YORK — Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he paid millions of dollars to Iraqi officials to illegally win contracts connected to the United Nations oil-for-food program. Wyatt told the federal judge in Manhattan that he agreed in December 2001 to advise others to pay a surcharge into an Iraqi account in Jordan in violation of a program rule calling for no direct payments to Iraq. "I didn't want to waste any more time at 83 years old fooling with this operation," Wyatt said outside court. "The quicker I get it over with the...

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson and a host of congressional candidates from both parties accepted cash from Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. and his wife, Lynn,since the federal government accused the Texas oilman of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. Wyatt was indicted in 2005 on charges related to illegal payments for oil contracts from the Hussein-led Iraqi government under the United Nations’ oil-for-food program. And since then, the Wyatts have found willing recipients for nearly $22,000 in political donations. After inquiries from Politico, Richardson and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said they would donate the Wyatts’ contributions...

Prosecutors promised on Monday to prove that Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government, earning him a privileged position in Iraq. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Miller told jurors at opening arguments of Wyatt's trial that prosecutors would present photos, audio tapes, bank records, U.N. records and Iraqi government records proving Wyatt paid kickbacks to win Iraqi oil contracts . "Oscar Wyatt's years of assistance to the Hussein regime earned him a privileged status in Iraq," Miller said. Wyatt, an 83-year-old self-made oil tycoon, faces five counts in Manhattan federal court including engaging in...

Texas oil trader Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. is scheduled to go on trial tomorrow on charges he paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein to sell Iraqi oil under the United Nations oil-for-food program. The trial is expected to include references to two other Texans who dabbled in oil: U.S. President George W. Bush and his father, the former president. The Bushes don't face any charges. Mr. Wyatt says he believes the U.S. government targeted him because he has been an outspoken critic of the two Bush administrations, particularly over the two wars in Iraq....

WYATT: U.S. OUT TO GET ME By RICHARD WILNER September 2, 2007 - Oscar Wyatt, the last of the Texas oil wildcatters, is a self-made billionaire, World War II fighter pilot and an outspoken critic of Gulf War I and Gulf War II. But this week, federal prosecutors intend on painting the 83-year-old tycoon as one of the most unpatriotic lowlifes of recent history. The government alleges Wyatt's Coastal Corp. paid millions of dollars in bribes to Saddam Hussein in order to get oil under the botched United Nations oil-for-food program. Prosecutors last week won the right to show jurors...

WASHINGTON — Houston oilman David Chalmers, accused of funneling illegal payments to Saddam Hussein's regime at at time when Iraq was the target of strict economic sanctions, pleaded guilty today to a conspiracy charge. Chalmers' business associate at Houston-based BayOil, Ludmil Dionissiev, pleaded guilty to one count of facilitating a shipment of merchandise into the United States, knowing that shipment to not be authorized by law. That leaves Houston oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt as the lone defendant still slated to go to trial in September on charges he made millions of dollars in illicit payments to Saddam's government for the...

A Texas oil executive pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a scheme to cheat the United Nations oil-for-food program out of millions by paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime. David Chalmers, the sole shareholder of Bayoil USA Inc. in Houston, was set to go on trial next month on charges he used a cozy relationship with Iraq in the 1980s to secure oil contracts. He could have faced more than 60 years in prison if convicted. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend a 37- to 46-month term when he is sentenced Nov. 19. Chalmers...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers and two companies he owns pleaded guilty on Friday to paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the United Nations oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 53, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, just weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Earlier on Friday, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian oil trader based in Houston, pleaded guilty to smuggling. Prosecutors said Dionissiev, 61, worked with Chalmers to buy Iraqi oil for Chalmers' companies -- Bayoil...

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said he opposes creation of a Palestinian state at this time and would take a tough stand with Iran, including destroying its nuclear infrastructure "should all else fail." "It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism," the former New York mayor said. "Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel," Giuliani...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for Oscar Wyatt has asked a judge to exclude evidence from his upcoming trial that suggests a link between the Texas oil tycoon and Saddam Hussein and a tip to Iraq about the U.S. invasion. The motion, filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, comes three weeks before Wyatt, former chairman and founder of Coastal Corp., goes on trial accused of paying secret kickbacks to Iraq and corrupting the U.N. oil-for-food program. He has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to pay several million dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in relation to the...

...Galloway's front organization, a "charity" known as the Mariam Appeal that campaigned against the sanctions on Iraq, had in fact received direct Iraqi subventions from the proceeds of the U.N.-sponsored "Oil for Food" program. Bank records established that Galloway's former wife had been paid at least $150,000 in this way. A completely separate U.N. inquiry chaired by former Treasury Secretary Paul Volcker identified another "Oil for Food" payment to the same lady, this time in the sum of $120,000.Snip...This raises two quite serious questions. The first is the extent to which the Iraqi Baath Party was able to purchase direct...

LONDON - The British Parliament's lower house on Monday suspended a lawmaker accused of concealing his financial dealings with Saddam Hussein's government. George Galloway, known for his fierce opposition to Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq, was suspended for 18 days, following an investigation which found that a charity he set up was partly funded by the Iraqi dictator. The decision, which came without a vote, followed a recommendation from a parliamentary disciplinary panel that investigated the charity. Galloway accused his opponents of hypocrisy. "Being lectured by the current House of Commons on the question of the funding of...

George Galloway faces new funds investigation By Tim Shipman in Washington, DC, Sunday Telegraph  Last Updated: 11:57pm BST 21/07/2007  George Galloway faces renewed investigation by US authorities over the channelling of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of payments from Saddam Hussein's regime to his Iraq charity.   George Galloway denies he solicited oil allocations   Three different bodies of prosecutors and the US justice department are preparing to examine the report by Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and the House of Commons committee responsible for MPs' standards, published last week.Sir Philip found that, by turning a...

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

UNITED NATIONS — A member of Britain's Parliament who professed support for Saddam Hussein and has clashed with American legislators over his role in the oil-for-food scandal, George Galloway, may face a criminal investigation in Britain after a House of Commons disciplinary committee recommended his suspension for 18 days. According to one new piece of evidence that emerged from yesterday's 181-page report by the House of Commons's Committee on Standards and Privileges, Mr. Galloway made an apparent request to Saddam that "dues" owed by Iraq to fund his cooperative efforts with the dictator be paid without delay, and that declining...

July 17th, 2007 - Washington, D.C. - The United Kingdom House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges has released a report today concerning MP George Galloway and his misconduct related to the Oil-for-Food Program. The Parliament report was highly critical of Galloway's activities related to the Program, ruling against Galloway on every charge. Finally, the Committee recommends that he be suspended from the House of Commons for eighteen working days – which is reportedly "one of the most severe [penalties] given to an MP" – and requests that he apologize for his misconduct. In arriving at its conclusions, the...

GEORGE GALLOWAY, the MP who campaigned against the Iraq war, is to be suspended from parliament over his links to the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq. The parliamentary standards watchdog will rule this week that Galloway failed properly to declare his links to a charitable appeal partially funded from money made by selling Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a source close to the inquiry. The one-month suspension for Galloway, often referred to as

MP George Galloway is set to be suspended from Parliament over his links to a charity bankrolled by illicit deals involving Saddam Hussein's regime. He will be barred from the Commons for one month by Parliament's standards watchdog for failing properly to declare his connections with the Mariam Appeal, it was reported. Mr Galloway, who became an MP for his own Respect party after being expelled from Labour, may also be asked to apologise for his behaviour by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Philip Mawer. Last month a damning report by the Charity Commission concluded that the Mariam Appeal,...

LONDON - A British oil trader was arrested Thursday on U.S. charges of paying bribes to Saddam Hussein as part of the discredited U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq. Metropolitan Police said John Irving, 52, was detained in central London on a U.S. extradition warrant. He appeared at the city's Westminster Magistrates Court and was released on bail until his next hearing on July 20. Irving was one of three men charged in New York in 2005 with cheating the United Nations of at least $100 million that should have gone to humanitarian aid for Iraqis. The other two — Texas...

A prosecutor told a jury on Monday that a former United Nations procurement official charged with bribery was a greedy and deceitful diplomat who exchanged nearly $100 million in contracts for a sweetheart deal on a luxury apartment and cash. Deputy U.S. Attorney Cathy Seibel promised the jury in her opening statement that the government would prove through more than 20 witnesses and hundreds of documents that Sanjaya Bahel secretly helped a Florida friend secure lucrative contracts from 1999 to 2003. She said the friend, Nishan Kohli, of Miami, agreed that his family's businesses would kick back 10 percent of...

Chevron squeezed for oil sales Company poised to pay millions over alleged kickbacks to Saddam Hussein David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Chevron Corp. is near an agreement to pay a $25 million -to-$30 million fine over alleged kickbacks in the company's purchases of Iraqi crude oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a published report Tuesday. The New York Times reported that Chevron is negotiating a settlement with federal prosecutors investigating a scandal-ridden United Nations program that allowed Iraq to use oil exports to buy food despite international sanctions. As part of the settlement, San Ramon's...

Canada involved in effort to lift Iraq from chaos Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, March 16, 2007 UNITED NATIONS — Canada offered Iraq help on Friday to lift it from chaos while speaking at a closed international meeting as one of the key powers seeking to involve as many countries as possible in the reconstruction of the war-torn country. While Ottawa kept wraps on its speech inside the United Nations meeting room, officials revealed the Canadian delegate spoke about the need to extend economic and political help. Attended by more than 80 countries, the meeting represented a...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Ministry poured scorn on a U.S. court's conviction of one of its U.N. diplomats for money laundering, saying on Thursday it had grave doubts about the trial. Vladimir Kuznetsov, 49, who once chaired a U.N. budget committee, was found guilty on Wednesday of helping launder more than $300,000 in bribes and taking a share of the money. He faces up to 20 years in prison. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that Russia had been amazed by his arrest, which it considered unnecessary for the investigation. "During the process and trial, the...

NEW YORK, March 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A jury in Manhattan federal court convicted Vladimir Kuznetsov of conspiring to commit money laundering, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia for the Southern District of New York announced today. The jury returned a guilty verdict after less than one hour of deliberation. Prior to his arrest in September 2005, Kuznetsov served as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions at the U.N. and was the highest-ranking Russian diplomat at the U.N. The evidence at trial proved that from 2000 through June 2005, Kuznetsov laundered over $300,000 in criminal proceeds obtained by...

Park Dong-sun, 72, who was indicted in the 1970s Koreagate scandal, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for his illegal lobbying activities on behalf of Iraq in the U.N.’s oil-for-food program. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said, “You acted out of greed and acted to profit out of what was supposed to be a humanitarian program.” Jurors in Federal District Court in Manhattan reached a verdict of guilty last July on whether Park received at least $2 million to lobby for Iraq.

NEW YORK - A South Korean businessman convicted of accepting at least $2 million to secretly work on Iraq's behalf to influence the United Nations' oil-for-food program was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison. Tongsun Park was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin for his conviction seven months ago on conspiracy charges. A jury had rejected his claims that he was a middleman representing the U.N.'s interests in relieving the pain of Iraqis under Saddam Hussein. The judge called it a "harsh" sentence for a 71-year-old man in poor health but said it was reasonable and appropriate under...

Met 'to investigate Galloway for taking cash from Saddam'Last updated at 10:27am on 14th February 2007 George Galloway is likely to be investigated by the Met Police over claims he broke US sanctions by receiving oil money from Saddam Hussein. The Serious Fraud Office has recommended that Scotland Yard open an investigation and talks are currently taking place with the Crown Prosecution Service. The Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow has denied any impropriety and will not be investigated on separate offences of corruption. Under UN sanctions oil sales were only permitted for approved humanitarian purposes. To prosecute,...

The Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into allegations that a number of major UK-based firms paid bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The firms being targeted include the drug giants GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly. The international oil traders and UK bridge-builders Mabey and Johnson are also to be investigated. They are on a long list of international companies accused in a UN report of paying kickbacks under the discredited oil-for-food sanctions regime, which enabled Saddam to illicitly amass an estimated $1.8bn. Ministers have agreed to fund the investigation with £22m over three years.