Two U.S. legislators asked Cyprus on Tuesday to extradite Benon Sevan, a former U.N. official charged with accepting a bribe in connection with the oil-for-food program for Iraq. Sevan, 69, the former head of the now-defunct $64 billion program is the only U.N. official charged by U.S. federal prosecutors for wrongdoing in the oil-for-food plan. He is accused of receiving some $160,000 through an intermediary. But as recently as last week, a Cypriot government official said in Nicosia said there had been no request for Sevan's extradition and that the island had laws prohibiting extradition of its nationals to third countries.
The two lawmakers were Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democratic who chairs the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and the committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. In a letter to Andreas Kakouri, the Cypriot ambassador in the United States, e-mailed to reporters, the members of Congress said Cyprus' membership in the European Union was seen as "heralding a new era of international cooperation by your country." |