A senior U.N. official could face criminal prosecution after it was revealed yesterday he solicited oil deals from Iraq while pocketing a mysterious $160,000 that he claimed he got from his aunt.
Benon Sevan, the former head of the U.N.’s oil-for-food program, also lied about his contacts with an oil-trading company and began to come clean last month only when confronted with his phone records, according to a report from investigator Paul Volcker.
Sevan’s conduct was “ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations,” the report found.
Volcker is heading a commission appointed by the United Nations to probe its scandal-scarred, now-defunct $67 billion program.
The commission’s report found that, despite his denials, Sevan solicited seven oil deals from the Iraqi government on behalf of the African Middle East Petroleum Co., known as AMEP.
The firm, run by a cousin of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali, earned $1.5 million in profits.
The report didn’t accuse Sevan of sharing in the profits but said he received $160,000 in mysterious cash payments from 1999 to 2003.
Sevan claimed the money came from his elderly aunt – a retired photographer for the Cyprus government who lived on a modest pension in an apartment owned by Sevan.
The aunt, Berdjouchi Zeytountsian, died last year after falling down an elevator shaft. She never showed signs of having large amounts of cash, the report said.
Richard Goldstone, a member of the Volcker group and a justice of the South African Constitutional Court, told Fox News he believed the threshold had been reached for criminal charges against Sevan.
Sevan repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and insisted he had only brief contact with AMEP’s chief, Fakhry Abdel Nour.
But Sevan began to change his story when the commission interviewed him on Jan. 21 – and confronted him with records of his numerous phone calls with Abdel Nour and other evidence obtained after a search of his office and computer.
An attorney for Sevan said in a statement his client had done nothing wrong and had become a “scapegoat.”
“It is unfortunate that the Independent Investigative Committee has succumbed to massive political pressure,” said Eric Lewis, a lawyer based in Washington, D.C., said in a written statement.
“As Mr. Volcker has conceded, there is no smoking gun. Mr. Sevan never took a penny.”
Iraqi government officials have said Sevan was instrumental in getting the U.N. Security Council to approve Iraq’s purchase of spare parts to keep the oil flowing.
Sevan, like other U.N. officials, is immune from prosecution, but Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he would strip immunity from anyone accused of wrongdoing.
But Volcker brushed aside the question of prosecuting wrongdoers.
“We are not a criminal tribunal,” he said at a press conference. “We are an investigative committee . . . Other entities will have to make those decisions.”
The report also found “convincing and uncontested evidence” of irregularities in the selection of three firms involved in the program – the French bank Banque Nationale de Paris, the Dutch firm Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere BV, and the British Lloyd’s Register Inspection Ltd.
Volcker said Boutrous-Ghali, who was secretary-general when the oil-for-food program began, was “under investigation in terms of the specifics of selecting” the French bank.
Boutros-Ghali ignored his staff and chose the bank to hold the program’s escrow account because it was the Iraqi government’s choice, he told commission investigators.
Volcker said a more-extensive final report, due out later this year, would address questions about Annan’s son, Kojo, who worked for a Swiss company that inspected humanitarian goods brought into Iraq.
With Post Wire Services
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The allegations
Report by Paul Volcker says former U.N. oil-for-food chief Benon Sevan:
* Demanded sweetheart deals for helping Iraq buy spare parts to keep the oil flowing
* Pocketed $160,000 he claimed came from an aunt living on a pension
* Steered contracts to a Panamanian company run by a cousin of ex-U.N. Secretary-General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali
* Earned $1.5 million for the Panamanian firm by getting discounts on Iraqi oil
* Lied about his contacts with the company until shown his own cellphone records
* Came clean two weeks ago when confronted with evidence