The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 15, 2005, Page 5, Image 5
Four charged in oil-for-food scandal; investigation continues
RICHARD DREW/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley addresses a New York news conference Thursday. A Texas businessman,
along with a Bulgarian and a British citizen, were indicted in a scheme to pay millions of dollars in
kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime as part of the United Nations’ scandal-ridden oil-for-food
program, federal prosecutors said.
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Four more
people were charged Thursday in
the scandal in the U.N. oil-for
food program, including a Texas
oil executive and a South Korean
businessman who was at the center
of a 1970s corruption case
involving Congress.
The indictment also suggested
that money skimmed from the oil
program might have ended up in
the hands of two U.N. officials.
Their names were not released.
The oil-for-food program was
created in 1996 to help Iraqis cope
with a U.N. embargo imposed on
Saddam Hussein’s regime. The
program let Saddam’s government
sell oil, provided the proceeds were
used to buy food and medicine for
Iraqis.
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program was rife with corruption.
U.S. Attorney David Kelley
called the new charges “two more
pieces in the oil-for-food puzzle”
and said the investigation is not
over.
“We’re going to wring the towel
dry,” he said.
One of the indictments
announced Thursday charges a
Texas oil company owner and two
oil traders with paying millions in
secret kickbacks to Saddam’s
regime to secure oil deals, thus
cheating the program out of
money for humanitarian aid.
The fourth person charged was
Tongsun Park, a South Korean
citizen and fugitive who allegedly
accepted millions of dollars from
the Iraqi government while he
operated in the United States as an
unregistered agent for Baghdad.
In the 1970s, Park was at the
center of what became known as
the Koreagate scandal, in which he
was accused of trying to buy
influence in Congress.
In the oil-for-food scandal, Park
was accused of telling a
cooperating government witness in
1995 that he needed $10 million
from Iraq to “take care” of his
expenses and his people. The
witness believed that that meant a
person identified in court papers
only as “U.N. Official No. 1.”
FBI agent Nicholas Panagakos
alleged that the government
witness in 1996 met at a New York
City restaurant with Park, an Iraqi
official and a high-ranking U.N.
official, identified in court papers
as “U.N. Official No. 2.”
Park afterward claimed that he
had used a $5 million guarantee
rrom tne government or iraq to
fund business dealings with the
U.N. official, authorities said.
Park allegedly told the
government witness in 1997 or
1998 that he had invested about
$1 million he had gotten from Iraq
in a Canadian company
established by the son of U.N.
Official No. 2. He said the
company failed and the money was
lost.
Kelley, pressed by reporters to
say whether U.N. officials had
actually received money tied to
Park, said only that the issue was
not part of the indictment.
Asked about the allegations,
U.N. associate spokesman
Stephane Dujarric said: “We’ve
always maintained that anyone
who’s found to have committed
any criminal wrongdoing in
relation to the program should be
prosecuted. So in that sense, what
you’re seeing today is progress.”
The charges were announced at
a news conference where an FBI
official said the oil-for-food
program was doomed when it let
Saddam control who got to buy
Iraqi oil.
“This was the embodiment of
the fox guarding the henhouse,”]
said John Klochan, acting assistant
director in charge of the New York
FBI office.
The indicted oil executive and
traders are David B. Chalmers, sole
shareholder of Bayoil (USA) Inc.;‘
Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian
citizen and permanent U.S.
resident; and John Irving, a British
citizen.
cmaimers ana L/iomssiev were
arrested Thursday at their homes
in Houston. Kelley said he will
seek to have Irving brought to the
United States from England to face
charges.
“We will vigorously dispute the
allegations of criminal conduct,”
said Catherine M. Recker, a lawyer
for Chalmers and for Bayoil.
The indictment accused the
three of paying the kickbacks so
that Chalmers’ oil companies
could continue to sell Iraqi oil
under the U.N. program.
If convicted, the three could get'
up to 62 years in prison, while
Park could face up to five years.
Kelley said he would also seek
$100 million from the three.
Two teenagers kill grandparents
to continue lesbian relationship
By ERRIN HAINES
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — A 15
year-old girl and her ex-girlfriend
pleaded guilty Thursday to
stabbing her grandparents to death
last summer so the young couple
could be together.
Holly Harvey told the judge
that while she was knifing her 73
year-old grandmother, “my eyes
were closed the whole time.”
Harvey pleaded guilty to two
counts of malice murder and was
sentenced to two consecutive life
sentences. She will not be eligible
for parole for 20 years. Sandy
Ketchum, 16, was sentenced to
three life terms, to be served
concurrently.
Shortly after the teens’ court
hearings, authorities arrested a
man and charged him with murder
for allegedly giving the girls crack
and marijuana that they smoked
the day of the killings.
Sarah Collier and her husband,
Carl Collier, 74, were each stabbed
numerous times Aug. 2 inside the
couple’s house outside Atlanta.
As part of her plea, Harvey
detailed how she killed the couple.
She said she and Ketchum had
stayed out all night, then spent the
morning of the killings listening to
music in her basement bedroom.
That was when Ketchum suggested
stealing the grandparents’ truck “to
get something to calm us down,”
Harvey said.
‘“We’ll have to kill them to do
that,’” Harvey said she responded.
“But I didn’t mean nothing by
that,” she told Judge Pascal
English.
Ketchum first suggested hitting
them in the head with a lamp, then
suggested getting a knife, Harvey
said. “I got the biggest knife 1
could find out of the kitchen,” she
said, adding that they practiced
stabbing a mattress to see if the
knife was sharp enough.
When the grandparents came
downstairs to get a suitcase,
Harvey said she stabbed her
grandmother.
Harvey said her grandfather
pinned her down, and she stabbed
him in the chest. She chased him as
he ran upstairs and tried to call for
help, pulling the phone out of the
wall, Harvey said.
“He grabbed the knife and I
thought he was going to stab me,”
Harvey said. She said she took the
knife from him and started
attacking him.
When the judge asked Harvey
why she did it, the teen said, “For
Sandy,” and added, “So that we
could be together.”
Ketchum’s hearing was much
shorter. She was not forced to detail
the crime because she had
immediately cooperated with
authorities and showed signs of
remorse, officials said. She was
prepared to testify against her former
friend, had the case gone to trial.
The teens had faced two counts
of felony murder, two counts of
malice murder and one count of
armed robbery. The maximum
sentence the girls could have
received was life in prison without
parole.
After the hearings, Calvin
Lawson, 37, was arrested in
Atlanta on murder charges for
allegedly giving the girls the crack
and marijuana. Sheriffs Lt. Col.
Bruce Jordan said that Johnson, a
construction worker, was charged
because committing a felony that
leads to a murder is grounds for a
murder count in Georgia.
The girls were arrested the day
after the killings at a beach house
on Tybee Island, about four flours
away. Police say they found a to-do
list of sorts scrawled in ink on
Harvey’s arm: “kill, keys, money,
jewelry.”
L
Democrats decry Williams hiring :
By BEN FELLER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Bush
administration is impeding an
investigation into the Education
Department’s hiring of
commentator Armstrong Williams
by refusing to allow key White
House officials to be interviewed, a
Democratic lawmaker briefed on
the review said Thursday.
In addition, Rep. George
Miller, D-Calif., said Education
Secretary Margaret Spellings is
considering invoking a privilege
that he said would require
information to be deleted when
the final version is publicly
released, which is expected within
days.
Miller called for Jack Higgins, the
inspector general at the Education
Department, to delay the report
until Spellings agrees not to invoke
“deliberative process privilege” and
the White House grants interviews
with current or former officials
familiar with the deal.
“The public’s right to know is
absolutely more important than
any claim of privilege that the
White House or the Department
of Education might make,” Miller
said. “The public has a right to all
the facts about possible
misconduct.”
White House spokeswoman
Dana Perino said that under
federal law, an inspector general’s
jurisdiction is limited to his or her
own agency - in this case, the
Education Department.
“The IG is authorized to request
information from . other federal
agencies but not from the White
House office,” Perino said, adding
that courts have upheld such
protections.
The Education Department
initially declined comment on
Miller’s charges. But early
Thursday evening, press secretary
Susan Aspey said Spellings has
spent the past few days reviewing
the report, and that “the inspector
general will be releasing it as
originally drafted with the
secretary’s full and complete
support and cooperation.”
A spokeswoman for the
inspector general’s office said the
agency does not comment on its
ongoing work.
The hiring of Williams, a
prominent media personality, has
opened the Bush administration to
criticism about whether its public
relations efforts have crossed
ethical or legal lines.
Bush himself has said the
department erred in not disclosing
that Williams was a paid
consultant. While speaking to
newspaper editors Thursday, the
president said in response to a
question about media consultants,
“It was wrong, what happened there
in the Education Department.”
Miller, the top Democrat on the
House education committee,'
received a briefing on the draft
findings of the investigation on
Tuesday because he had requested
the report. The report also had*
been requested by then-Education
Secretary Rod Paige.
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