The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confirmed for the first time to The New York Sun. The probe, apparently well advanced, involves allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program for Iraq, then under U.N. sanctions against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Sevan was picked for the job by Secretary-General Annan.News of the criminal probe raises prospects that at least one U.N. official may yet face criminal prosecution over activities related to the more than $110 billion worth of Saddam's oil sales and relief purchases that the United Nations oversaw in Iraq from 1996-2003. The probe into Mr. Sevan comes on top of oil-for-food-related indictments of a number of private businessmen issued April 14 by federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, along with a federal complaint alleging bribery involving unnamed "high-ranking United Nations officials" - described in circumstances that suggest these are individuals other than Mr. Sevan.
A source close to the criminal investigation into Mr. Sevan says that the office of the Manhattan DA, Robert Morgenthau, is working in cooperation with the United Nations-authorized inquiry led by a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota.
Mr. Annan has said he is prepared to lift the U.N.-conferred immunity of any staff member, should the facts support criminal charges. He has largely stood behind Mr. Sevan, approving U.N. payment of his legal fees from mid-2004 until February of this year. Mr. Annan revoked that perquisite when the first of two Volcker committee interim reports found that Mr. Sevan, in soliciting lucrative oil allocations from Saddam's regime on behalf of a Panama-registered private company, African Middle East Petroleum, had engaged in "a grave and continuing conflict of interest." But Mr. Annan has kept Mr. Sevan on the U.N. staff, listed as an "adviser," with a U.N. office and phone number, and a U.N. salary of $1 a year. The U.N. rationale is that this status allows Mr. Sevan to be on hand to assist in the investigation. But it also allows Mr. Sevan to retain immunity from prosecution. Mr. Sevan has declared throughout that he is innocent, but could not be reached to comment on this latest news that he is the subject of a criminal probe. Messages left on his U.N. voicemail got no response.