Oil-for-Food Witnesses May Have Been Threatened 

Stewart Stogel, 
February 4, 2005
NewsMax.com
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/4/144805.shtml

Some of those we interviewed felt their lives may have been in danger. So exclaimed noted former South African jurist Richard Goldstone in a New York City news conference.

Goldstone, along with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Mark Pieth, make up the three man Independent Committee of Inquiry created by U.N. chief Kofi Annan to investigate allegations of corruption in the U.N.'s former Iraq-Oil for Food Program. The committee released its first preliminary report during a NYC news conference on Thursday. 
To no one's surprise, the committee criticized the program's former executive director, Benon Sevan of irreconcilable conflicts of interest in the way the U.N. awarded contracts. 
While no criminality has yet been charged, Volcker and his fellow committee members added that could still happen in another report due in about 4 months. 
However, the situation may become more complicated when Volcker releases a second interim report in March. 
That report will center on the involvement of Kofi Annan and his son Kojo in the Oil for Food Program. 
Late Thursday, Annan's newly minted chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, told a news conference that the U.N. chief would take disciplinary action against Sevan and would not allow him to invoke diplomatic immunity should criminal charges be filed in the future. 
Just what action the U.N. may take against Sevan, who has since retired from his U.N. post, is not clear. 
Officials in the office of human resources, tell NewsMax that Sevan's pension, believed to be in excess of $75,000 a year, cannot be touched. 
It is also unclear whether Sevan will elect to remain in NYC as the Volcker probe continues. 
Sevan had previously told NewsMax he intended to return to his native Cyprus early this year, though at the time he added it would only be a temporary visit. 
With the possibility of criminal charges pending, it is unclear whether the former U.N. official will sit and wait for the other shoe to fall. 
What now has U.N. officials shuddering, is the Goldstone comment about death threats against people his commission have been interviewing. 
Privately, U.N. officials have called the remarks outrageous but refused to say so on the record. 
Goldstone told NewsMax that he took such concerns seriously but for obvious reasons would not disclose who had been threatened, nor who was responsible. 
The revelations came as questions were being raised about the curious death of a relative of Benon Sevan. 
His aunt, Berdjouchi Zeyountsian, is said to have died in an elevator accident last year at her home on Cyprus. 
Before her death, she had given her nephew $160,000 over a 4 year period for living expenses during her annual visit to his home in midtown Manhattan. 
The payments raised eyebrows with U.N. investigators since she was a pensioner living on a modest fixed income. 
Volcker claims that Sevan had not been forthcoming when asked for more details on the payments from his aunt. 
While Annan says he will act quickly on the latest Oil for Food revelations, he may see his own problems grow exponentially next week. 
NewsMax has learned that potentially damaging information on U.N. officials regarding operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be made public in a national U.S. network broadcast scheduled for Friday, February 11. 
The network, ABC, would not release details of its U.N. investigation.