British traders charged over Iraqi oil-for-food affair

August 27, 2009
(AFP) 
Original Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5igYN8uYE7XTtx3qBQ6eNlxuKrlJA http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5igYN8uYE7XTtx3qBQ6eNlxuKrlJA
LONDON — Two British oil traders have been charged with breaching UN sanctions in the oil for food programme imposed against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reports said on Thursday.
Aftab al-Hassan was due to appear in a London court Thursday over allegations he funnelled 900,000 pounds in payments into offshore bank accounts run by the Iraqi government, the Financial Times said.
He has been charged with 13 counts of breaking sanctions imposed by the United Nations between January 2001 and April 2002, the FT said.
Our client's defence is that any payment he made was perfectly legal. There was nothing underhand or illegal about any of the 13 payments, his lawyer told the newspaper.
A second trader appeared in court on August 19 on similar charges, the Daily Telegraph newspaper said.
The charges are part of a wide investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over allegations British companies paid bribes to the former Iraqi dictator's regime to win lucrative contracts.
The oil-for-food programme ran from 1996 until 2003, when US-led forces invaded Iraq.
It allowed Baghdad to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods which the country lacked because of tight UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Saddam's government allegedly embezzled millions of dollars from the scheme, sparking a scandal that caused major embarrassment to the United Nations.
A damning 2005 UN report named 2,000-odd companies from 40 countries that allegedly paid commission fees to the Iraqi government in the 1990s.