French Government Distances Itself from Oil-For-Food Suspects

Welcome Roger Simon Readers!

Well, if Roger Simon is going to link to me, I guess I’d better have a post about the topic.

Here goes, from AFP (bolds after title are mine):

Paris distances itself from oil-for-food suspects

PARIS, Oct 12 (AFP) - The French foreign ministry Wednesday distanced itself from two former senior diplomats who are implicated in an investigation into corruption related to Iraq’s oil-for-food programme.

“According to the information we have, Messieurs Serge Boidevaix and Jean-Bernard Mérimée are the subjects of legal action to do with their private activities carried out after their retirement,” ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told journalists.

Mérimée, 68, French ambassador to the United Nations in New York — and therefore a Security Council regular — between 1991 and 1995, was Monday taken into custody by a French judge probing alleged allocations granted under the oil-for-food programme by deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein between 1996 and 2003.

Boidevaix, 77, a former secretary-general at the French foreign ministry, is one of five other people already placed under judicial investigation by judge Philippe Courroye in connection with the case.

The others are: businessman Claude Kaspereit; Bernard Guillet, an adviser to former French interior minister Charles Pasqua; Gilles Munier, head of an Iraqi-French friendship society; and Palestinian journalist Hamida Nana.

The foreign ministry said it had written to Boidevaix and Mérimée in September 2001 to remind them of their “special responsibilities” as former top diplomats and had received acknowledgement of the letters.

“Their private activities involve only themselves and in no way the government or the ministry of foreign affairs,” Mattei said.

Yes, they are shocked! shocked! that OFF affects someone in France. Please.

In what I am “sure” (ha) is an unrelated development:

France backs Annan ahead of oil-for-food report

PARIS, March 29 (AFP) - France on Tuesday voiced its “full support” for embattled UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ahead of the publication of a report on the scandal-plagued oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

“As for Kofi Annan’s work in general as secretary general of the United Nations, I can tell you that we offer him our full support and confidence,” foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told reporters.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the latest report from former US banking chief Paul Volcker will fault Annan for not recognising the conflict of interest over his son Kojo’s work for a company contracted by the programme.

But Annan’s spokesman said Monday he expected to cleared of any wrongdoing.

I think these two stories combined can be seen as choosing sides, closing ranks, and off-loading inconvenient baggage.