Posted on 06/14/2007 7:19:26 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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 oil executive David Chalmers and Bulgarian oil trader Ludmil Dionissiev — have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The extradition warrant accuses Irving of colluding with Chalmers and others to defraud the U.N. and pay "illegal and secret commissions and surcharges to officials of the government of Iraq" between January 2000 and March 2003.
Irving, who was an employee of Chalmers' Bayoil firm, has previously denied any wrongdoing.
At the time of the U.S. indictment in 2005, Irving said the allegations against him were "entirely without foundation" and vowed to mount a robust defense.
The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under the program, money from Iraqi oil sales was to have been used for food and medicine.
But Saddam chose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods. In a bid to end the sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for oil to be resold at a profit.
An investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker concluded in 2005 that 2,200 companies from some 40 countries had colluded with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion.
Saddam was deposed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and executed in December.
OILFORFOOD
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1096037/posts
-”No Blood for Oil”- Kojo & Kofi: Unbelievable U.N. stories.
Ping. Calpernia has already put it in your thread.
durr! I just noticed that you’d already been pinged.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.