I Believe We Have Our First Head
A breaking news alert this morning announced that the diplomatic immunity of Alexander Yakovlev has been revoked, and Mr. Yakovlev was taken into custody by federal authorities. Yakovlev was deeply involved in the Oil-For-Food program. Paul Volker, the lead investigator into the Oil-For-Food scandal, is also recommending that Benon Sevan have his diplomatic credentials revoked.
Investigators found that Yakovlev secretly tried to bribe a company called Societe Generale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS), which was seeking an oil inspection contract under Oil-for-Food.
They said Yakovlev passed secret bidding information along to a friend in France, Yves Pintore, who then approached SGS to check if it would "work with" him and "influential people in the U.N. in New York."
Volcker's team found no evidence that the company agreed to the bribe. However, it noted that Pintore essentially agreed to its characterization of his involvement.
The committee found "persuasive evidence" that Yakovlev took some $950,000 from other U.N. contractors outside Oil-for-Food.
Yakovlev was the U.N. officer in charge of awarding contacts to both Saybolt and Cotecna big contracts for Iraq, and the Volcker committee relied on his claims that in both cases, but particularly that of Saybolt, he had fought against the violation of U.N. rules.
But Yakovlev, a Russian native, abruptly resigned from the United Nations in late June, after a FOX News investigation revealed that he was involved in an apparent conflict of interest with a regular U.N. supplier, IHC Services Inc., which had hired Yakovlev’s son Dmitry between 2000 and 2003, according to Dmitry’s own resume.
That is from the FOX News report that is surrounding Benon Sevan, who is also implicated in the new Volker report released today. (There is a link to the PDF of the report on the FOX News site, but for some odd reason, I cannot get it to load..) For the first time, the investigators on Volker’s team have connected a motive to Sevan, as it is clear that his finances were "precarious" at the time the conspiracy was unfolding.
Another implicated figure in the burgeoning scandal is that of Kofi Annan’s son, Kojo, who was working with the Cotecna firm; a firm directly involved in the oil sales for the Oil-For-Food program. It seems as though a conflict of interest existed as Kofi pulled some strings to get his son the job.
Last Thursday, Sevan's lawyer Eric Lewis said the committee would find in its upcoming report that Sevan got kickbacks for steering contracts under Oil-for-Food to a small trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co. Ltd. Inc. Lewis said it would also accuse Sevan of failing to cooperate with the investigation.
The report largely confirmed that, but went further. It described how Sevan and his wife repeatedly had overdrawn their bank accounts before Sevan first sought to steer oil allocations to AMEP. It also found that two men helped Sevan: Fred Nadler, an AMEP director and brother-in-law of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; and Fakhry Abdelnour, the president of AMEP.
In a February report, the IIC concluded that Sevan solicited oil allocations on behalf of the company, known as AMEP, between 1998 and 2001. It accused Sevan of a "grave conflict of interest."
That report questioned $160,000 in cash that Sevan said he received from his aunt in his native Cyprus between 1999 and 2003. The report called the money "unexplained wealth" and noted that the aunt, who has passed away, was a retired government photographer living on a modest pension.
Claudia Rosett, the esteemed columnist for the Wall street Journal, has been following this scandal with a microscope. More and more evidence is beginning to come to the surface in these reports issued by Volker and company. We were taken, and we were taken by a group of swindlers under the guise of easing the suffering of others.
And the Left still does not believe we need John Bolton in the UN. On the contrary, we need about a dozen more like him in the UN to reform this corrupt body. It is time to either fix it, or get out of it and send them packing to Brussels, or Geneva. They cannot be trusted. They do not like us, or any of our allies, and they recognize the world’s worst thugs and dictators as legitimate leaders. And as long as we stay in the UN, the more it will bleed us, and attempt to force us to comply to their worldview, which is anything but peace. It is subjugation.
The Bunny ;)
A breaking news alert this morning announced that the diplomatic immunity of Alexander Yakovlev has been revoked, and Mr. Yakovlev was taken into custody by federal authorities. Yakovlev was deeply involved in the Oil-For-Food program. Paul Volker, the lead investigator into the Oil-For-Food scandal, is also recommending that Benon Sevan have his diplomatic credentials revoked.
Investigators found that Yakovlev secretly tried to bribe a company called Societe Generale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS), which was seeking an oil inspection contract under Oil-for-Food.
They said Yakovlev passed secret bidding information along to a friend in France, Yves Pintore, who then approached SGS to check if it would "work with" him and "influential people in the U.N. in New York."
Volcker's team found no evidence that the company agreed to the bribe. However, it noted that Pintore essentially agreed to its characterization of his involvement.
The committee found "persuasive evidence" that Yakovlev took some $950,000 from other U.N. contractors outside Oil-for-Food.
Yakovlev was the U.N. officer in charge of awarding contacts to both Saybolt and Cotecna big contracts for Iraq, and the Volcker committee relied on his claims that in both cases, but particularly that of Saybolt, he had fought against the violation of U.N. rules.
But Yakovlev, a Russian native, abruptly resigned from the United Nations in late June, after a FOX News investigation revealed that he was involved in an apparent conflict of interest with a regular U.N. supplier, IHC Services Inc., which had hired Yakovlev’s son Dmitry between 2000 and 2003, according to Dmitry’s own resume.
That is from the FOX News report that is surrounding Benon Sevan, who is also implicated in the new Volker report released today. (There is a link to the PDF of the report on the FOX News site, but for some odd reason, I cannot get it to load..) For the first time, the investigators on Volker’s team have connected a motive to Sevan, as it is clear that his finances were "precarious" at the time the conspiracy was unfolding.
Another implicated figure in the burgeoning scandal is that of Kofi Annan’s son, Kojo, who was working with the Cotecna firm; a firm directly involved in the oil sales for the Oil-For-Food program. It seems as though a conflict of interest existed as Kofi pulled some strings to get his son the job.
Last Thursday, Sevan's lawyer Eric Lewis said the committee would find in its upcoming report that Sevan got kickbacks for steering contracts under Oil-for-Food to a small trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co. Ltd. Inc. Lewis said it would also accuse Sevan of failing to cooperate with the investigation.
The report largely confirmed that, but went further. It described how Sevan and his wife repeatedly had overdrawn their bank accounts before Sevan first sought to steer oil allocations to AMEP. It also found that two men helped Sevan: Fred Nadler, an AMEP director and brother-in-law of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; and Fakhry Abdelnour, the president of AMEP.
In a February report, the IIC concluded that Sevan solicited oil allocations on behalf of the company, known as AMEP, between 1998 and 2001. It accused Sevan of a "grave conflict of interest."
That report questioned $160,000 in cash that Sevan said he received from his aunt in his native Cyprus between 1999 and 2003. The report called the money "unexplained wealth" and noted that the aunt, who has passed away, was a retired government photographer living on a modest pension.
Claudia Rosett, the esteemed columnist for the Wall street Journal, has been following this scandal with a microscope. More and more evidence is beginning to come to the surface in these reports issued by Volker and company. We were taken, and we were taken by a group of swindlers under the guise of easing the suffering of others.
And the Left still does not believe we need John Bolton in the UN. On the contrary, we need about a dozen more like him in the UN to reform this corrupt body. It is time to either fix it, or get out of it and send them packing to Brussels, or Geneva. They cannot be trusted. They do not like us, or any of our allies, and they recognize the world’s worst thugs and dictators as legitimate leaders. And as long as we stay in the UN, the more it will bleed us, and attempt to force us to comply to their worldview, which is anything but peace. It is subjugation.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 12:55 PM
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