Head of UN agency combating drugs rebuked over firearm

By Mark Turner and Jimmy Burns 
March 21, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0496cc62-b91e-11da-b57d-0000779e2340.html

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, has earned a rebuke from the UN after failing to tell Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, that he accepted a free handgun from an Austrian arms manufacturer.
Mr Costa assumed the post in 2002 with pledges to restore the agency’s credibility after a scandal involving his predecessor, and his job is up for renewal in May. He accepted the gift after a visit in 2003 to Glock’s premises near Vienna. UNODC sources say the issue has been allowed to surface amid long-running tensions with the US over the direction of international policies for dealing with illicit drugs.
The sources say Mr Costa no longer commands the support of Washington, and there is a question mark over whether he will continue as head of the agency after his contract runs out.
While the Bush administration has stepped up its backing for tough interdiction and eradication policies in countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia, there is concern that the UN’s 10-year drug strategy has made little headway in meeting its self-imposed target of creating a “drug-free” world by 2008.
Richard Murphy, the UNODC spokesman, said Mr Costa “recognises that his failure to notify the secretary-general was an oversight. He regrets this. He stresses that the gun was never in his possession; it was always kept in the UN security section and was registered as part of its inventory.”
Mr Costa was a licensed firearms holder and “does a little target practice”, Mr Murphy said. He visited Glock in the presence of a UN firearms instructor, and “at the end of the session he was offered the gun he had used, free of charge”. He felt it would be “discourteous to refuse” and accepted the gift as a “donation to the UN”.
In May last year a former head of security in Vienna, following “an agreed termination procedure”, began talking about the donation of the gun. Mr Costa asked the UN’s internal investigatory arm to investigate.
Following its report, Mark Malloch Brown, the UN’s chief of staff, who was recently appointed deputy secretary-general, wrote to Mr Costa last month.
He said accepting the gift had been an error of judgment and that Mr Costa should return it or donate it to UN security. The UN considers the matter closed.
Pino Arlacchi, Mr Costa’s predecessor and a fellow Italian, left after being the subject of an internal UN investigation into alleged mismanagement of funds and concerns over the drug programme’s recruiting and auditing methods.
In 2003 Mike Trace, a former top British drug official, resigned from the agency after failing to disclose his links to a drug-policy reform group, and the UN’s internal watchdog found that another senior official at the UNODC, Michael Platzer, had improperly given 11 contracts to his wife.