 The prosecution of a Texas businessman accused of orchestrating an Iraqi oil scandal took a strange twist Tuesday when allegations surfaced that he told the Iraqi government crucial details of the impending 2003 American invasion of the country.
Lawyers for Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. said in court papers filed Monday and made public Tuesday that the allegations, contained in an Iraqi official's diary, are highly prejudicial and irrelevant and should be kept out of his upcoming trial. "This document essentially alleges that Wyatt has committed the deplorable crime of treason and aided an enemy of the United States," the lawyers wrote.
| Why yes it does, doesn't it. And I think we'd like to know more. |
Wyatt is charged with conspiring to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime to win contracts under the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq.
| The statements about Wyatt were contained in a diary kept by an employee of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, |
The statements about him were contained in a diary kept by an employee of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, and some of the entries seem more at home in a spy thriller than in a court of law.
| The diary suggests Wyatt notified the Iraqi government that the United States would bomb Iraq, when it would invade Iraq and how many soldiers would be sent |
The diary suggests Wyatt notified the Iraqi government that the United States would bomb Iraq, when it would invade Iraq and how many soldiers would be sent, the papers said. "Such a document is undeniably prejudicial, as a jury sitting during the pendency of the ongoing Iraq war would potentially be prejudiced against Wyatt upon learning that he allegedly gave information about the United States invasion to Iraqi officials," the papers said. | The document also claims Wyatt persuaded Sen. Edward Kennedy to deliver a speech against the war with Iraq |
The document also claims Wyatt, of Houston, persuaded Sen. Edward Kennedy to deliver a speech against the war with Iraq, the lawyers wrote. A spokeswoman for Kennedy, D-Mass., did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday.
It was unclear how Wyatt might have known intimate details of the American invasion of Iraq.
| The lawyers also asked that the government be blocked from showing the jury evidence that links payments made by Wyatt directly to Saddam. |
The lawyers also asked that the government be blocked from showing the jury evidence that links payments made by Wyatt to the State Oil Marketing Organization directly to Saddam. "Hussein has remained one of the most hated individuals in the world," the lawyers said, calling the evidence extremely prejudicial.
| Any reason why that might be? |
| Wyatt's lawyers asked the judge to exclude evidence of recorded conversations in which "Wyatt unfortunately made several prejudicial comments." |
Wyatt's lawyers asked the judge to exclude evidence of recorded conversations in which "Wyatt unfortunately made several prejudicial comments." In one, the lawyers said, Wyatt described a black female attorney by using a racially offensive term and pointed out that an attorney he intended to hire was Jewish.
Wyatt, the founder and former chairman of Coastal Corp., has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in early September.
Prosecutors, in their own submission, outlined key parts of their case, saying they will prove Wyatt provided millions of dollars of secret financial assistance to the Saddam regime in the 1990s, even before the oil-for-food scheme. The government said Wyatt was granted the very first oil allocation under the oil-for-food program in 1996 and continued to receive allocations through 2002, long after Saddam's regime stopped awarding allocations to other U.S. citizens and companies.
Prosecutors said Wyatt's co-defendant, David Chalmers, enjoyed a cozy relationship with Iraq in the 1980s and used that to secure oil allocations. They made no reference in their letter to Judge Denny Chin to the diary entry that Wyatt's lawyers sought to exclude, but they did say that for both defendants "the uncharged conduct is certainly no more sensational or emotionally jarring than the charged crimes, and any potential prejudice could be addressed with a proper curative instruction."
In separate papers, lawyers for Chalmers, who also has pleaded not guilty, asked that evidence against Wyatt _ including a picture of Wyatt with Saddam, evidence that Wyatt supplied satellite equipment to Iraq, evidence that Wyatt acted as a foreign agent for Iraq and evidence that Wyatt notified Iraqi oil officials about planned troop movements _ be excluded from the trial.
| "We want all evidence excluded that might prove to the jury that our clients are guilty, yer Honor!" |
"When the evidence that Wyatt disclosed American military plans to Iraq in early 2003 is added to the previously produced evidence that Wyatt visited Saddam Hussein in 1990 in an apparent effort to undermine the first Gulf War and that Wyatt provided satellite equipment to the Hussein regime, it is clear that the government will depict Wyatt as a traitor who repeatedly endangered the lives of American soldiers," the Chalmers lawyers wrote. "Because of the prejudicial spillover effects, the court should exclude the evidence from trial."
Chalmers and Wyatt, who's in his early 80s, each could face more than 60 years in prison if convicted. |