Oil-for-food man quit on principle
(CNN) -- One of two investigators who resigned earlier in the week from the commission probing fraud at the United Nations' oil-for-food program released a statement Saturday in which he disputed a report that he did so because his work was finished.
Instead, Robert Parton said in the statement, he resigned on principle.
Parton and Miranda Duncan resigned from the panel headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNN, Richard Goldstone, a member of the Volcker panel, discounted a media report that the two resigned to protest conclusions the panel had reached about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
He said Parton and Duncan had completed their work and were set to leave.
Contrary to recent published reports, I resigned by position as senior investigative counsel for the IIC not because my work was complete, but on principle, Parton said in the statement. He declined further comment.
A spokeswoman for the Volcker panel also said earlier in the week the pair had completed their works. She declined comment on reports the two had quit in protest, calling their resignations a personal decision.
The Volcker panel concluded that Annan's management was inadequate to avoid charges of conflict of interest, but he was not accused of any corruption.
Parton and Duncan worked on the investigation into Annan's son, Kojo, who was denounced in the latest Volcker report for misleading investigators, and his own father, about his ties to the program.
Michael Holtzman, a spokesman for the Volcker committee, issued a statement saying its collective judgments are contained in its reports, as well as the evidence on which those judgments are based.