Congress Subpoenas Oil-for-Food Papers
BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 6, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. team headed by Paul Volcker, which has been looking into the oil-for-food scandal for almost a year, lost a battle with congressional investigators over possession of investigative material yesterday.
The handover of documents to Congress opened the possibility of a new probe into allegations that Secretary-General Annan was involved in steering oil-for-food business to Cotecna, a company that employed his son, Kojo. The Volcker committee found that there was not enough evidence to substantiate the allegations.
House investigators are now poring over material that was handed over by a former Volcker investigator, Robert Parton. In addition, Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, plans to subpoena Mr. Parton to testify at a hearing at the Senate. Mr. Coleman's spokesman, Tom Steward, yesterday told The New York Sun that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations postponed by a week its hearing, now scheduled for May 17.
The congressional activity may raise doubts regarding Mr. Annan's declaration that the Volcker report of March 29 exonerated him. Mr. Volcker said in a statement yesterday that he stood by his report.
I am confident that our report contains all the relevant factual information gathered by my investigative team concerning Secretary-General Annan and his son, Mr. Volcker's statement read. It is only the inferences drawn from those facts that are subject to different conclusions and where two former staff members may have disagreed.
The two former staffers were the team's top field investigators, Mr. Parton and Miranda Duncan, both of whom resigned last month. Yesterday, one key witness who was interviewed by Mr. Parton and Ms. Duncan, Kojo Annan's former partner, Pierre Mouselli, disputed Mr. Volcker's assertions that all relevant factual information was contained in the March 29 report.
Mr. Mouselli gave the two investigators several pieces of evidence that could be seen as problematic for the secretary-general but were not mentioned in the Volcker report, Mr. Mouselli told the Sun. He added that Mr. Parton and Ms. Duncan told him they had planned to follow up on points of his testimony but never did so. Mr. Mouselli said he is ready to cooperate with congressional investigators, who have already expressed interest in his testimony.
Mr. Parton was not available for comment, but the documents in his possession, which were a subject of a subpoena that was delivered last Friday, were turned over yesterday to House investigators.
I wish to extend to Mr. Parton my thanks for fully complying with the subpoena, the head of the committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, said in a statement. It is my hope and expectation that neither the United Nations nor the independent inquiry will attempt to sanction Mr. Parton for complying with a lawful subpoena.
In his statement, Mr. Volcker said the handover of documents to Congress, in a breach of confidentiality agreements, signed by Mr. Parton when he joined the team known as the Independent Inquiry Committee, might harm his own investigation. It is a question of the ability of the IIC, as mandated by the Security Council, to complete its important and sensitive work, Mr. Volcker wrote.
In a letter dated May 5, a lawyer for Mr. Volcker's team, Susan Ringler, angrily wrote to Mr. Parton's lawyer, Lanny Davis, that rather than being forthright, you chose to be disingenuous. But beyond saying that the Volcker committee is reviewing this matter and its options, the IIC seemed resigned to the fact that Mr. Parton complied with the subpoena.
Mr. Parton has complied with congressional subpoenas as required by law and was made aware that the consequence of defiance would be a finding of contempt of Congress, Mr. Davis said yesterday in his own statement. On multiple occasions on the telephone and in writing, Mr. Parton asked the IIC and the U.N. whether he should defy congressional subpoenas. The IIC and the U.N. refused to respond.