SEVAN'S SAFE HAVEN
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
August 27, 2005
Has America seen the last of Benon Sevan, former head of the United Nations' scandal-scarred Oil-for-Food program?
Ordinarily, that suggestion would be good news. But not if Sevan has made his way to safe haven in order to avoid criminal prosecution.
And that's just what law-enforcement officials fear may have happened.
Sevan, recently accused by the Volcker Commission of soliciting and accepting bribes in order to steer lucrative oil vouchers to favored companies, is now in Cyprus.
His lawyer says that Sevan, a native Cypriot, went to the Mediterranean island to take part in "a religious rite following his aunt's death" — the same aunt who supposedly left him the $160,000 in unexplained deposits that investigators believe came from Oil-for-Food bribes.
His departure, conveniently enough, came after Secretary-General Kofi Annan finally decided to strip Sevan of his diplomatic immunity — theoretically leaving him at the mercy of prosecutors and a grand jury.
So when is he coming back to New York, where he owns homes in both Manhattan and the Hamptons?
Well, now that he's no longer on the U.N. payroll, "Cyprus is his place of residence, and not New York," Sevan's lawyer told The Post this week.
And since Cyprus and the United States don't have an extradition treaty, there'd be no way to force Sevan's return here to face criminal charges, if any are issued by the U.S. Attorney's office or Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau — both of whom are still investigating Oil-for-Food.
Indeed, a Cypriot official made clear last week, "There is a constitutional prohibition on extraditing one of our nationals to another jurisdiction."
In other words, U.S. law-enforcement can indict to its heart's content — because Sevan will never see the inside of a courtroom.
(Asked specifically whether Sevan had fled possible prosecution, his lawyer told The Post's Niles Lathem that the question "isn't germane" because he doesn't believe Sevan has done anything wrong.)
Is anyone really surprised by this latest development?
After all, Sevan's legal fees were being paid by the United Nations, which kept him on as a $1-a-year consultant after his resignation (from a tax-free, $186,000-a-year job) in order to preserve his diplomatic immunity.
Sevan's lawyer has insisted all along that the allegations against his client are "baseless" and that Sevan "never took a penny."
Of course not.
So, was Sevan allowed to slip free because of fears of what he knows about corruption high up in the U.N. bureaucracy? Recall that Sevan's connections are not just with Annan but with his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali: The Volcker Commission last winter outlined Sevan's ties to a company (and oil-voucher recipient) owned by Boutros-Ghali's cousin.
Benon Sevan, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg of this mind-bogglingly complex scandal — albeit a very important tip. That he may have been allowed to flee in order to avoid prosecution is just the latest reason why Kofi Annan and his corrupt crew have to go.
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