The head of the investigative panel, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, told a news conference that Sevan's conduct was troubling.
"The Iraqi government providing such allocations certainly thought they were buying influence. But whatever the result in terms of actual behavior, I think it is a fact that Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict of interest situation that violated explicit UN rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant," Volcker said.
The report said that Sevan lobbied Baghdad on behalf of a Swiss-based trading firm -- the African Middle East Petroleum Company -- for the allocations. But the report did not say Sevan personally received money from the later sale of the oil.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement following the report that he had already initiated disciplinary action against Sevan.
The investigation into corruption in the oil-for-food program focuses in part on how some companies may have paid some UN officials and Hussein's regime kickbacks in exchange for the right to sell Iraqi oil. The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group has concluded that Hussein clandestinely earned $1.5 billion dollars through such kickbacks.
Sevan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his management of the oil-for-food program. The program was set up to allow Iraq to sell oil to buy humanitarian goods as an exception to UN-imposed trade sanctions on Hussein's regime.
(RFE/RL)
"The Iraqi government providing such allocations certainly thought they were buying influence. But whatever the result in terms of actual behavior, I think it is a fact that Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict of interest situation that violated explicit UN rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant," Volcker said.
The report said that Sevan lobbied Baghdad on behalf of a Swiss-based trading firm -- the African Middle East Petroleum Company -- for the allocations. But the report did not say Sevan personally received money from the later sale of the oil.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement following the report that he had already initiated disciplinary action against Sevan.
The investigation into corruption in the oil-for-food program focuses in part on how some companies may have paid some UN officials and Hussein's regime kickbacks in exchange for the right to sell Iraqi oil. The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group has concluded that Hussein clandestinely earned $1.5 billion dollars through such kickbacks.
Sevan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his management of the oil-for-food program. The program was set up to allow Iraq to sell oil to buy humanitarian goods as an exception to UN-imposed trade sanctions on Hussein's regime.
(RFE/RL)
