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Judicial Order in the BNL Case
Issued by Judge Marvin Shoob on
October 5, 1992.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT,
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA,
ATLANTA DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERlCA,
Plaintiff,

v.

CHRISTOPHER P. DROGOUL,
Defendant

CRIMINAL ACTION 1:91-cr-078-MHS

This case involves billions of dollars raised and loaned in
international finance. It involves allegations of an international
bank fraud that may have helped pay for Iraq's military build-up.
But the more important issue before this Court involves a man's
liberty and serious questions about the integrity of our justice
system and the almost unreviewable powers of prosecutorial
discretion. The Court's judgment and decisions throughout the
hearings and motions before it have been guided by its belief that
there is a moral component to the Court's involvement in this case
the responsibility to do the right thing.

This order will set forth the reasons the Court will grant the
Government's motion to recuse and why the Court, on October 1,
1992, orally granted defendant Christopher P. Drogoul's renewed
motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

I. BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

For almost three weeks, the Court has heard evidence relating to
the sentencing of Mr. Drogoul who entered a guilty plea to 60
counts of a 347-count indictment on June 2, 1992, and faced a life
sentence. The indictment centers on charges that Mr. Drogoul, the
manager of the Atlanta branch of one of Italy's largest banks,
defrauded the parent bank ("BNL") by making some $2 billion in
unauthorized loans to Iraq and other countries. A number of these
loans were backed by the Department of Agriculture's Commodity
Credit Corporation ("CCC"). The indictment also includes charges
of tax evasion, making false reports to government agencies and
money laundering. Mr. Drogoul is the highest ranking BNL official
indicted and the focus of the Government's prosecution.

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http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/RepRecord95.htm

Republicans on the Record
SENATOR BURNS DECRIES U.S. DEPENDENCE ON OIL IMPORTS FROM ROGUE NATIONS

Last year (2001), the U.S. bought over $4 billion in oil from Iraq through the U.N. oil-for-food program. But the process of purchasing Iraqi oil is not transparent, and that's exactly where the mischief begins. The oil does not pass directly from seller to buyer, but through shady middlemen who are able to give fat kickbacks to Saddam

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Question. Is it too much to ask that we stop buying Iraqi oil and financing the Iraqi war machine before we send American men and women into battle and face the weapons that the dollars we are sending to Iraq are buying?