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No testimony on Iraq oil probe: UN
UNITED Nations officials would not be allowed to testify before US Congress hearings on the oil-for-food program in Iraq, the UN said in a letter released today.
"Nope. Nope. Can't do it."
The letter from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, said officials could brief privately but that diplomatic immunity kept them off-limits for public hearings. "As a matter of policy, the (UN) organisation does not waive such immunity in relation to testimony under oath before national legislative bodies," he said in a letter to Republican Senator Norm Coleman.

Mr Malloch Brown said UN officials would otherwise have to make themselves available to the legislatures of the UN's more than 190 member nations. Coleman is heading a US Senate panel looking into the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program and had wanted Dileep Nair, the head of the UN's internal watchdog, to testify. The letter, dated Monday, said Mr Nair could not testify at a hearing yesterday that saw complaints from senators about access to UN officials.
Posted by: tipper 2005-02-17
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=56679