Shell washes hand off ‘oil-for-food’ scam
Associated Press
Geneva, February 5
The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies denied on Friday that it had any knowledge of kickbacks paid by a Geneva-based middleman it used to buy oil from Iraq under the UN oil-for-food program.
Shell bought about 6.4 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil from African Middle East Petroleum, or AMEP, which has told UN investigators that it paid an illegal surcharge to obtain contracts from Saddam Hussein's regime.
"Shell wasn't aware of any surcharge payments being made to any persons on any of the cargoes it bought from third parties," spokeswoman Lisa Givert told The Associated Press from the company's headquarters in London.
AMEP president Fakhry Abdelnour told an investigation led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that he paid an illegal surcharge of euro177,978 (then $160,000) to an Iraqi-controlled bank account in Jordan in October 2001, using some of the proceeds he had received from the sale of oil to Shell. The oil major made its final purchase of oil from AMEP in September 2001, according to the Volcker report.
When contacted by the AP, a receptionist at AMEP's office in Geneva said that no one was available to comment, and that Abdelnour was traveling.
AMEP is registered in Panama and has offices in Monaco, although Abdelnour lived and worked in Geneva during the oil-for-food program, which ended in 2003, said the Volcker report. The Volcker investigation also said that Benon Sevan, the oil-for-food program chief, solicited oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's regime on behalf of AMEP between 1998 and 2001, and it raised concerns he may have received kickbacks for the help. The investigators said AMEP made profits of about $1.5 million (euro1.2 million) from lifting Iraqi oil.
"Shell has no knowledge or information regarding the involvement of Mr. Benon Sevan in any of the Iraqi crude oil purchased by it," Givert said.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.