France's former interior minister denied any involvement in suspected corruption in the oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq and said the detention of his former aide in an investigation into the program did not concern him. Charles Pasqua, a conservative who headed the Interior Ministry in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was named in a report last October by U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer as one of several officials who allegedly benefited from corruption in the humanitarian program. The politicians and officials cited in the report were mainly from Russia, France and China. In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Pasqua denied involvement in the scandal and said the detention earlier this week of his former aide, Bernard Guillet, in a French judge's investigation of the program "does not concern me." Asked about claims that he traded in Iraqi oil, he said: "Of course not. All of that is ridiculous.""I have said and thus I confirm that I have strictly nothing to do with this affair. I never received anything. I never took part in any sales," he said in the telephone interview. Pasqua, who in his current post as senator has immunity from prosecution, suggested he was unwittingly implicated in Duelfer's report. "If my name crops up, then someone must have used my name," he said. "I have nothing to do with all of this."