Iraq offered oil for thanks

2005-05-18 17:34

Paris - Iraq tried to compensate former French interior minister Charles Pasqua in the late 1990s with millions of barrels of oil for his helpful attitude toward Baghdad, Le Monde newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The French daily said that a former aide to Pasqua who is under investigation in France in connection with the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, Bernard Guillet, told an examining magistrate that Pasqua had been offered oil allocations.

Guillet reportedly said former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz had told him "that Iraq wanted to thank Pasqua for the role he played in 1993 when he organised the first visit for a high-level official in France".

Aziz then allegedly told Guillet that Saddam Hussein wanted to thank Pasqua with oil allocations, Le Monde reported.

But a source close to the investigation said it was still unclear whether Pasqua had actually received the oil, as alleged by a US Senate probe.

Last week, a US Senate panel accused Pasqua, along with the controversial British lawmaker George Galloway, of taking massive oil allocation as kickbacks in the 1990s from Saddam's regime under the UN oil-for-food program.

The US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations based its report on what it said were Iraqi oil ministry documents and the testimony of senior officials in Saddam's regime, ousted in the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Both Pasqua and Galloway have denied the allegations.

Guillet was placed under judicial investigation in France - one step shy of formal charges - as part of a corruption probe connected with the UN oil-for-food program.

Investigators believe Guillet received commissions from a middleman who brokered the resale of Iraqi oil.

- AFP