Posted on 06/27/2006 5:34:50 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Saddam Hussein’s regime paid millions of dollars to a South Korean businessman to create a “secret backchannel” to top UN officials, including Boutros Boutros Ghali, then the UN Secretary-General, US prosecutors alleged today.
The claim, formally naming Dr Boutros Ghali for the first time, was made at the start of the first US trial over the UN’s Oil-for-Food scandal.
Prosecutors said that Tongsun Park received $2.5 million (£1.4 million) in cash plus promises of lucrative business deals in return for providing access to Dr Boutros Ghali and at least one other top UN official.
“Tongsun Park has access at the highest levels of the UN. Tongsun Park had his price. Tongsun Park sold his access to the UN. He sold it to the Iraqis,” Michael Farbiarz, a federal prosecutor, told the jury. “Cash by the bagful was sent to the US and doled out to Tongsun Park by an agent for Iraq.”
The prosecution did not allege that Dr Boutros Ghali had received any money during negotiations on the creation of the $64 billion humanitarian programme in 1996. But Mr Farbiarz said that the money Iraq paid to Mr Park appeared to have had its desired effect.
Mr Park, 71, who was born in North Korea, faces up to 12 years in prison on charges that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Saddam’s Iraq during and after the creation of the programme.
Prosecutors alleged that Mr Park was recruited by Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-American businessman, who has admitted working illegally for Saddam’s Iraq. Mr Vincent handed Mr Park large sums of cash, prosecutors allege. But it was “just a down payment”, and both men were promised business deals once sanctions were lifted.
The prosecution said it would not try to prove what happened to the money given to Mr Park. But Mr Farbiarz said that about $1 million went into an oil company controlled by Maurice Strong, then a top adviser of Kofi Annan, who is now the UN Secretary-General. Mr Strong called it a normal commercial investment.
Michael Kim, Mr Park’s lawyer, described his client as “just a middle-man in the grand international game of oil and money”. He suggested that Mr Park did not know Mr Vincent was acting for Iraq.
BUMP
bttt
Good.
I didn't like that bastard any better than Kofi.
What a shock. NOT.
I wouldn't be sorry to see that building imploded and all the so-called "diplomats" dispersed somewhere else.
Interesting article, but someone should introduce Mr. Farbiarz to the concept of pronouns.
Boutros Boutros (/MaryHartman)
How could you do this? It was supposed to be for the children.
Thanks for posting, TailgunnerJoe
Actually, Ghali doesn't have anything on Kofi in terms of corruption. He was corrupt in a bumbling, bureaucratic sort of way. Annan is like mafia corrupt.
The list is shorter of who was not involved.
Certainly a trend with this UN general secretary position.
One might expect the antichrist if they weren't such obvious inept bumbling fools.
Tongsun Park has a vanity website:
http://www.tongsunpark.com
Hope Maurice goes down too.
Apparently this is the same Tongsun Park who was involved in bribing members of congress during the Nixon administration.
Now we know why Bubba wants the job. Huge graft, MSM extolling his every move, and he
spreads his liberal pablum at the same time. Plus he can always apply his prior (Juanita, Katheleen) experience for those close inspection tours with the UN's on the ground brigade.
Only proper names get caps.
1970s : ("KOREAGATE") Mr [Tongsun] Park was also at the centre of the 1970's "Koreagate" bribery scandal in Washington. ------ "Lobbyist indicted over oil-for-food," Herald Sun, 24 January 2006
The scary thing is that compared to recent occupants, even Clinton would be an improvement. ;)
Tony Blair should get the job.
Volley bump!
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