French UN Official Arrested in Oil for Food Scandal

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France - Former French Ambassador to UN arrested in Iraq Oil-For-Food scandal
AFP via Babelfish translation | October 11, 2005

Posted on 10/11/2005 4:31:54 AM PDT by HAL9000

Pétrole/nourriture: the former ambassador of France to UNO in police custody

PARIS - a former French ambassador with UNO, Jean-Bernard Mérimée, was placed in police custody within the framework of the French investigation on embezzlements supposed related to the program "oil against food" in Iraq, one learned Tuesday from sources close to the file.

Mr. Mérimée, 68 years, which was permanent representative of France to the Security Council of UNO between 1991 and 1995, was placed in police custody Monday by judge Philippe Courroye with the Brigade of repression of the economic delinquency (BRDE).

The judge suspects it of having profited from generosities of the mode from Saddam Hussein in the form of goods from purchase from oil or "allowances" between 1996 and

Mr. Mérimée, who should be submitted in front of the magistrate Wednesday, could have to answer to have benefitted from these "allowances" in the form of commissions with the resale, according to a source close to the file.

The French diplomat is one of the eleven personalities likely to have profited from advantages in exchange of his support for the Iraqi mode.

According to documents' collected fine April March-beginning by Mr. Courroye near UNO, the ex-minister of the Interior Charles Pasqua is in particular quoted, among these eleven personalities.

Five people out of the eleven were already put in examination to date by Courroye judge: the secretary-general of the association of the Friendships free-Iraqi Gilles Munier, the former diplomatic adviser of Mr. Pasqua Bernard Guillet, the diplomat Serge Boidevaix, the businessman Claude Kaspereit and the journalist Palestinian Hamida Na' Na.

This instruction open in Paris in 2002 on facts of "abus of social goods" to the damage of the oil company Total, made it possible to recently highlight skirtings of the U.N. program "oil against food" in Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

At the end of June 2005, the parquet floor authorized the magistrate to inquire into possible operations of corruption of foreign civils servant for obtaining oil between 2001 and 2003, the qualification being applicable in French right only since September 2000.