 A South Korean businessman accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the United Nations' oil-for-food program scandal is hiding in Tokyo where he is considering a U.S. plea bargain offer, a news report said Saturday. Tongsun Park was charged in the United States on Thursday for allegedly accepting money from the Iraqi government while he operated as an unregistered agent for Baghdad.
| Lawsy! Has anybody given a thought to Tongsun Park for the past 30 years? |
Park told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily that he had received "a little" money from Iraq. He said he was now in Tokyo but was considering a plea bargain offer from U.S. officials. "I was told the target of U.S. attorneys' investigation was corruption charges against high-ranking U.N. officials related to the oil-for-food program, not me," Park was quoted as saying.
| Seems like the stench of corruption coming from the program was enough to bring participants from miles around... |
The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It let the Iraqi government sell limited — and eventually unlimited — amounts of oil primarily to buy humanitarian goods. But Saddam chose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.
| Brilliant. Simply brilliant. |
In a bid to end the sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for oil to be resold at a profit. In the alleged scandal, Park is accused of telling a cooperating government witness in 1995 that he needed $10 million from Iraq to "take care" of his expenses and his people, which the witness believed meant a person identified in court papers only as "U.N. Official 1." In 1996, another high-ranking U.N. official attended a restaurant meeting with Park, an Iraqi official and the government witness. After "U.N. Official 2" left, Park claimed that he had used a $5 million guarantee from the Iraqi government to fund business dealings with "U.N. Official 2," court papers said. Park told the government witness in 1997 or 1998 that he had invested about $1 million that he received from Iraq in a Canadian company established by the son of "U.N. Official 2," though the company failed and the money was lost.
In the 1970s Park was at the center of what became known as the "Koreagate" scandals in which he was accused of trying to buy influence in Congress.
| Oh, well. I was working out in the yard today. I needed a shower, anyway. |
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