NEW YORK, Aug 8: The former head of Iraq’s Oil-for-Food programme, Benon Sevan, resigned on Sunday a day ahead of an inquiry committee report which accused him of getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation. The Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) headed by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker recommended that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan waive Mr Sevan’s diplomatic immunity for ‘purposes of a criminal Investigation’.
Mr Annan is expected to comply with the IIC recommendation, stripping Mr Sevan of his diplomatic immunity. Mr Sevan, in letter issued through his lawyer, blasted the UN secretary-general for ‘sacrificing him’.
“I fully understand the pressure you are under...but sacrificing me for political expediency will never appease our critics or help you or the organization,” he wrote. The Independent Inquiry Committee released a third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian programme for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003.
Mr Sevan blamed the secretary-general and his staff for not defending the programme and making him a scapegoat. He said that the programme, which supplied food and other goods to 27 million Iraqis, was often caught between conflicting mandates given by the UN Security Council, which supervised it, and national interests of those trying to do business with Iraq.
