Total and French Officials Cleared in Iraq Oil-for-Food Case

The across-the-board acquittal in the case, which prompted a decade-long French investigation, came despite widespread international accusations that the program was rife with corruption and was thwarted to benefit Saddam Hussein’s government.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said everyone facing trial in the French case was acquitted Monday by a Paris court. Prosecutors have up to 10 days to appeal.

Defendants included Total; its chief executive, Christophe de Margerie; the former interior minister, Charles Pasqua; and former French diplomats, among others.

Investigators accused them of getting around a United Nations embargo against Iraq by buying Iraqi oil through front companies, allowing the Hussein government to raise money illicitly.

Total has said it was operating according to the rules of the
program, which allowed Iraq, while under United Nations sanctions, to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods from 1996 to 2003.

The program was intended to help Iraqis cope with United Nations sanctions, but authorities said the program was corrupted because Mr. Hussein was allowed to choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.

A sweeping United Nations investigative report in 2005 alleged many kickbacks in the lucrative contracts linked to the program. The report said that Mr. Pasqua, for example, was awarded 11 million barrels of oil. Mr. Pasqua denied receiving any.

The French investigation was opened in 2002 on the basis of funds transferred from 1997 to 2001 between Total subsidiaries and companies based abroad.

After years of investigation, prosecutors in the French case had argued that the case be dropped, saying investigators had failed to uncover enough hard evidence for a conviction.

Mr. Pasqua and two former high-ranking diplomats were accused of influence-trafficking and corruption. Mr. de Margerie was accused of “complicity in the abuse of company assets” and “complicity in corrupting foreign officials.”

A lawyer for the oil company, Jean Veil, drew wry smiles when hailing the “total acquittal” of Total.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/business/global/total-and-french-officials-cleared-in-iraq-oil-for-food-case.html?partner=rss&emc=rss