Scandal deepens

New York

The United Nations oil-for-food scandal deepened this week when investigators accused the former head of the humanitarian program of taking kickbacks worth $147,184. Benon Sevan, a 67-year-old Cypriot, allegedly received the money between 1998 and 2002 for steering contracts to a brother-in-law of former U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The $64 billion program was launched in 1996 to let Iraq buy humanitarian supplies despite sanctions imposed against Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait. But Saddam turned it into a cash cow, skimming $1.7 billion in kickbacks. Sevan said the U.N., embarrassed by the scandal, was “sacrificing me for political expediency.”