Free Republic

August 14, 2005 -- LONDON — The $21.3 billion United Nations oil-for-food scandal has now widened to include the brother of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Kobina Annan, the Ghanaian ambassador to Morocco, is said by investigators to be "connected" to an African businessman at the center of the scandal. The probe into Kobina's dealings are at an early stage and he has not been interviewed. However, investigators are understood to suspect that Michael Wilson, an African businessman, and Kobina had a business relationship at the time of the scandal. A source close to the investigation said: "We believe Kobina Annan...

NEW YORK Apr 14, 2005 — Four more people were charged Thursday in the scandal in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including a Texas oil executive and a South Korean businessman who was at the center of a 1970s corruption case involving Congress. ~snip~U.S. Attorney David Kelley called the new charges "two more pieces in the oil-for-food puzzle" and said the investigation is not over. ~snip~One of the indictments announced Thursday charges a Texas oil company owner and two oil traders with paying millions in secret kickbacks to Saddam's regime to secure oil deals, thus cheating the program out of money...

Kofi Annan’s special envoy to Korea Maurice Strong admits he knows "Koreagate Man" Tongsun Park and even that Park invested in an "energy company" with which he was associated in 1997--but flatly denies any involvement in the scandal-ridden UN oil-for-food program. U.S. federal prosecutors are on the hunt for Park, who was charged on Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with allegedly accepting million of dollars from the Iraqi government while operating in the U.S. as an unregistered agent for Baghdad. "Park was accused of telling a cooperating government witness in 1995 that he needed $10 million from Iraq to...

For news junkies, this will be a hectic week. By its end, Catholics may have a new pope, we may have a new UN ambassador, and both Kofi and his bestest buddy Jacques may suffer nervous breakdowns. Things are looking up because, while Volcker fiddles, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York are burning bad guys. Now all we need to find out are the names of Cooperating Witnesses One and Two, and the high-ranking UN officials whom they bribed for Saddam. CW1 and CW2 may be the first people who have earned the...

UN linked to Iraqi oil-for-food agent By Mark Turner in New York Published: April 14 2005 14:40 | Last updated: April 14 2005 23:30 The United Nations suffered a further blow on Thursday when US authorities revealed that at least one high-ranking official in the organisation might have been bribed in connection with the Iraq oil-for-food programme by a South Korean lobbyist for the Baghdad government. The disclosure, in a complaint by the US attorney for the southern district of New York, came as criminal charges were also brought against three businessmen linked to Bayoil, a Texan oil company said...