Oil firms subpoenaed over UN scheme
June 21, 2004
By Carolyn Koo
New York - Exxon Mobil and ChevronTexaco had received subpoenas from a federal prosecutor in connection with the UN-run oil for food programme in Iraq, the two biggest US oil companies said on Friday.
The office of the US attorney for the southern district of New York declined to say if it was probing the programme.
The US congress, the Iraqi government and the UN are already looking into allegations of corruption in the programme.
A spokesperson at Exxon's refining and marketing headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, said the subpoena requested documents related to the oil for food programme. "We are responding appropriately," she said.
San Ramon, California-based ChevronTexaco received a subpoena, which is a request for information, for the same matter and is also co-operating, according to a company spokesperson who declined o be named.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein last year documents have been released that indicate bribes and kickbacks were paid to individuals and contracts were skimmed in the now-defunct $67 billion (R434 billion) scheme.
The programme started in December 1996 and was meant to ease the impact of 1991 Gulf War sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.
United Nations officials said that they believed the subpoenas were the first indication that the federal prosecutor's office might be looking into what was going on in the programme.
During the programme the US was the biggest purchaser of Iraqi oil, consuming about two-thirds of its exports, buying the oil through middlemen who dealt with Baghdad.
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