Republished from Antiwar
(REUTERS) The prosecutor in the first U.S. federal trial over the U.N. oil-for-food program said on Tuesday he would show evidence of kickbacks, intrigue and back channel tactics during the United Nations dealings with Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Prosecutor Michael Farbiarz laid out his case in opening arguments at the trial of South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park, who is accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the former Iraqi President .
Farbiarz said evidence would show that during 1996 Park received substantial cash payments from Iraq, including an envelope with $100,000, and by the end of 1996 the oil-for-food program was in place.
But defense attorney Michael Kim said Park was just "a middleman or facilitator, like almost everybody else involved in the giant international game of oil and money."
The oil-for-food program allowed Iraq to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy nonmilitary goods, under U.N. supervision. It aimed to ease the impact of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, but the $67 billion program was rife with corruption, investigators say.
Several defendants are facing criminal charges in federal court in New York in connection with the program.
Kim urged jurors not to be blinded by the prosecution's presentation of intrigue and reminded them that Park was not charged with spying or selling access to the United Nations.
Park, 71, faces charges in U.S. District Court of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a maximum of five years in jail
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