July 12, 2005
Oil-for-Food Program Official Investigated
By REUTERS
By Reuters
The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, has begun a criminal investigation of the official who led the Iraq oil-for-food aid program under the United Nations, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
No details were given about the investigation of the official, Benon V. Sevan, but a spokeswoman for Mr. Morgenthau, Barbara Thompson, confirmed that it was taking place. News of the investigation was first reported in The New York Sun.
Mr. Sevan, a Cypriot and veteran United Nations senior staff member, is also the subject of an investigation by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, into allegations that he steered allocations of Iraq oil to a trading company while he was in charge of the program. Mr. Sevan has denied the charges.
Mr. Volcker's investigation, which was commissioned by the United Nations, found no evidence that Mr. Sevan had received bribes. But it did question the fact that Mr. Sevan had declared to the United Nations $160,000 in cash from 1999 to 2003 from an aunt in Cyprus, who has since died.