UN investigator claims Annan lied about son's role

By Francis Harris
December 9, 2005
The Daily Telegraph (London)
Original Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/09/wannan09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/09/ixworld.html
Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, lied about what he knew of his son's business activities at the time of the Iraq oil-for-food programme, according to the senior investigator charged with examining his conduct.
A report published by the US Congress also alleges that senior members of the UN's separate Volcker inquiry into the programme resisted printing any conclusion which might have forced Mr Annan's resignation.
When the UN report on Mr Annan's conduct was published nine months ago, it stated that there was no evidence that Mr Annan had misbehaved. The inquiry examined the employment of Mr Annan's son Kojo by a firm called Cotecna. It discovered that the UN leader had friends at the company and had asked them to find work for his son.
The firm later won a multi-million-dollar UN contract under the oil-for-food programme. But Mr Annan said he had not known about this until after the contract was awarded. 
The Volcker commission said it had no evidence to contradict the UN leader's assertions. But the congressional report quotes former FBI officer Robert Parton, who led the section of the Volcker team examining Mr Annan, as concluding that his bosses were unwilling to reach any conclusion that would result in significant adverse consequences for the secretary-general.
The centrepiece of the new allegations was an account of a meeting between Mr Parton and his investigative team, and Paul Volcker, the former US federal reserve chairman.
During the meeting, Mr Parton allegedly stated that the evidence created a reasonable inference that he [Kofi Annan] is lying. But according to the report senior members of the inquiry team resisted the conclusion of their top investigator.
Every one of the new allegations has been denied by the Volcker team. Mr Volcker's inquiry issued a 13-page response to the Parton allegations. It stated: The commission acted in accordance with its procedures and did not afford the secretary general any kind of unfair advantage.