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<span id="lblTitle" class="subchanneltitle"><b><font face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Ex-Halliburton staff in Saudi kickback</font></b></span><br>
<span id="lblAuthorUp"><i><font face="Arial">by </font></i></span><br>
<span id="lblDate"><i><font face="Arial">Friday 24 March 2m006 7:08 PM GMT</font></i></span>
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<span id="lblMainPicture"><img src="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/2A551058-3568-4809-9134-9C78934B5E2B/117633/C7306AF4978F4D848B22A8893F54E156.jpg" alt="Halliburton offices" border="0"></span>
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<span id="lblMainCaption">A spokeswoman said Halliburton does not tolerate misconduct</span>
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<p><b><span id="lblSummary">A former
employee of a Halliburton subsidiary has pleaded guilty to taking
kickbacks from a Saudi subcontractor that was awarded a $14.4 million
US military contract to provide dining facilities for soldiers in
Kuwait.</span></b></p>
<p><span id="lblArticle"><p><font size="2">Stephen
Lowell Seamans, a former Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) Services Inc.
manager in Kuwait, pleaded guilty on 10 March to wire fraud and
conspiracy to launder money, a US Attorney's office announced on
Thursday after unsealing court documents.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">On the same day, Federal prosecutors announced
charges against the operations director for Tamimi Global Co., the
Saudi subcontractor who the government alleges paid off Seamans to
award his company the contract.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Mohammad Shabbir Khan, 49, a naturalised US citizen
born in Pakistan, is charged with making false statements to federal
agents during a meeting in Rock Island on Wednesday, during which he
denied making the alleged kickback payments.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Federal prosecutors say Seamans, 44, accepted more
than $124,000 from Khan in October 2002 in exchange for the one-year US
Army subcontract for Tamimi to run the dining facility at Camp Arifjan,
an American base in Kuwait.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">US Army Operations Support Command, headquartered in
Rock Island, awarded Kellogg, Brown & Root a broad contract in
December 2001 to support logistics for US military forces, including
the provision of dining facilities for US soldiers in Kuwait.</font></p>
<p><font size="2"><strong>Cleaning contract</strong></font></p>
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<p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="1"><b>US forces in Kuwait received <br>logistics support from KBR </b></font></p></td></tr></tbody></table></p>
<p><font size="2">Seamans' plea agreement also said he agreed to take a
$5,000 kickback from another, unnamed company in Kuwait in exchange for
a cleaning contract. According to prosecutors, that company's managing
partner later offered to hire Seamans as a consultant at an annual
salary of $1.2 million after Seamans left Kellogg, Brown & Root,
but the two later ended the deal after an advance payment of $300,000
was made to Seamans' bank account.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Seamans faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison
on each count, and fines of $250,000 for the wire fraud charge and
$500,000 for the conspiracy to launder money charge. His sentencing is
scheduled for 4 August.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">A Halliburton spokeswoman on Friday said that Seamans
has not worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root since 2003, and that the
company had told the US government of its concerns over possible
misconduct by Seamans, emphasising Halliburton's intolerance of such
behaviour.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">A US Attorney said Seamans had agreed to cooperate
with prosecutors in "rooting out corruption in the military procurement
supply chain".</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Khan faces a maximum of five years in prison and a
$250,000 fine if convicted on the charge of making false statements to
federal agents.</font></p></span></p>
<p><b><span id="lblInfoSource">AP</span><br>
By <span id="lblAuthor"></span></b></p>
<p>You can find this article at:<br>
<span id="lblArticleUrl"><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2A551058-3568-4809-9134-9C78934B5E2B.htm">http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2A551058-3568-4809-9134-9C78934B5E2B.htm</a></span>
</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is<br>Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture<br><a href="http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/">http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
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