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Friday, May 13, 2005

International

International

European lawmakers deny graft charges

U.S. Senate's report on Iraqi oil programme

PARIS: Two European politicians on Thursday adamantly denied accusations from a U.S. Senate committee that Saddam Hussein's regime allocated them millions of barrels of Iraqi oil in exchange for their support.

British lawmaker George Galloway called the claim that he traded Iraqi oil ``patently absurd.''

Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua said he had already repeatedly denied having ``received any benefit whatsoever in whatever form from the authorities or the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.''

The Senate committee, citing contracts, letters and interviews, set out evidence on Wednesday to back claims that Mr. Galloway and Mr. Pasqua accepted oil allocations under the U.N. oil-for-food programme for Mr. Hussein's Iraq.

Mr. Pasqua (78) headed the French Interior Ministry from 1986-1988 under then-Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and again from 1993-1995 under Edouard Balladur. Once a Chirac loyalist, he supported Mr. Balladur against Mr. Chirac in presidential elections in 1995 that the French leader went on to win.

Now a Senator, Mr. Pasqua appeared to suggest in his statement refuting the U.S. Senate committee's allegations of corruption that other French politicians should shoulder responsibility.

Mr. Pasqua noted that his name had popped up in January 2004 on a list published by an Iraqi newspaper of 270 persons who allegedly profited from Iraqi oil sales. He also was named in a report last October by U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer as one of several officials who allegedly benefited from corruption in the U.N. programme.

"A hatchet job"

Mr. Pasqua said the Senate committee's probe reiterated the previous accusations against him ``in large measure.'' ``I deny them one more time.'' Mr. Galloway, an outspoken opponent of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, said the committee had done ``a political hatchet job.'' Speaking to Sky News television, he said: ``The idea that the most scrutinised politician in Britain was secretly moonlighting as an oil trading billionaire is patently absurd. If I had millions of barrels of oil, I would be a billionaire.''

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