The trial of Tongsun Park starts tomorrow in New York. The Times of London looks forward to revelations of links between Saddam Hussein and former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in one of the first UN Oil-For-Food trials:

LINKS between Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General, and an alleged agent for Saddam Hussein will come under the spotlight when the first American trial of a major figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal gets under way today.

The judge has ruled that prosecutors can present evidence of Dr Boutros Ghali’s relationship with Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman on trial in New York for acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Saddam’s Iraq.

The North Korean-born Mr Park was dubbed “the oriental Gatsby” after he played a central role in the “Koreagate” bribery scandal in Washington in the 1970s, although the judge has ruled that evidence of that role is not relevant to this case.

Mr Park, 71, is accused of plotting to make pay-offs to two top UN officials to secure favourable terms for Iraq in the creation of the Oil-for-Food programme during the 1990s.

If CQ readers wonder why Boutros-Ghali has any connection to the notorious bribery figure of the 1970s, please refer to my post from last January when American officials arrested Park. As the London Telegraph reported back then, the FBI has evidence of Park attempting to give a million-dollar bribe to the former UN honcho:

The indictment, released on Friday, refers to attempts to buy the influence of two unnamed UN officials. A separate investigation - led by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman - into the scandal concluded that Mr Park and another accused man tried to pass $1 million to the former UN secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The report said there was no evidence that Mr Boutros-Ghali received or agreed to receive the money. The Volcker commission also found that in 1997 Mr Park invested $1 million in a Canadian company linked to the son of Maurice Strong, a close aide to Kofi Annan, the current secretary-general, in an attempt to secure his help for Iraq. The report found no evidence that Mr Strong was involved.

Park's trial may wind up giving us an interesting look into the UNSCAM machinations that have not yet been made public. Claudia Rosett will be all over this, of course.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is