U.N. scandal

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

United Nations investigators last week accused Benon Sevan, former head of the oil-for-food program in Iraq, of steering a multimillion-dollar oil contract to a friend’s company. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended Sevan, a largely symbolic move since the onetime Annan confidant is essentially retired. The now defunct program was meant to help ordinary Iraqis obtain food and medicine, despite sanctions against Saddam Hussein, but Saddam turned it into a massive bribery and kickback scheme. Investigators, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, didn’t say Sevan had taken kickbacks. They did question his claim that $160,000 he received over four years came from a retired aunt. Sevan’s lawyer said he “never took a penny.”