US citizen pleads guilty in UN oil-for-food scam
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-19 04:55

An Iraqi-American on Tuesday pleaded guilty to conspiracy, violating economic sanctions and other charges in connection with corruption in the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq, court documents showed.

Samir Vincent, a naturalized American citizen, pleaded guilty to four charges as part of a plea deal with the government, which is investigating whether U.S. laws were violated in the $64 billion program.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft was due to answer questions about the case at a news conference at 2 p.m. (1900 GMT), law enforcement officials said.

According to documents filed in the U.S. District Court in New York, Vincent agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy, violating economic sanctions, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and income tax violations.

Vincent, who surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday morning in New York, faces a maximum of 28 years in prison. He also agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into corruption in the oil-for-food program.

The plea agreement represented the first case brought as part of the government's investigation into the scandal.

The court documents said that between 1992 and January 2003, Vincent "consulted with and repeatedly received direction from the government of Iraq" as part of an effort to get the U.S. government and the United Nations to repeal sanctions against Iraq.

It said he also was involved in negotiations that eventually led to the launch of the oil-for-food program.

Under the program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November 2003, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government was allowed to sell oil to buy civilian goods to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

"In consideration of Vincent's efforts on its behalf, the government of Iraq awarded Vincent and a company under his control the rights to purchase approximately 9 million barrels of oil under the oil-for-food program," the court documents said.

The documents said Vincent had received the rights to the oil between 1997 and 2001 in five separate allocations.

"Vincent reaped millions of dollars of profits by selling to an oil company the rights to purchase that Iraqi oil," the documents said.

Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. arms inspector who did a detailed survey last fall, said Saddam earned $1.5 billion through kickbacks from contracts for goods purchased through the oil-for-food program and $229,000 from surcharges on oil sold under the program.

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