Ex-U.N. official admits taking, seeking bribes

NEW YORK - A former U.N. procurement officer pleaded guilty Monday to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from U.N. contractors, federal prosecutors said.

Alexander Yakovlev also admitted to soliciting a bribe under the U.N. oil-for-food program, making him the first U.N. official to face criminal charges in connection with the scandal-tainted program for Iraq.

He pleaded guilty to all three counts in the indictment — wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering — and could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Yakovlev, who lives in the New York City suburb of Yonkers, was taken into custody and released later Monday on a $400,000 bond, with no new court date immediately set, said Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for David Kelley, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.

“We decided that it’s in the best interest of the client to enter such a plea,” Yakovlev’s lawyer Arkady Bukh told The Associated Press. “In terms of sentencing we expect a much better deal if we enter a guilty plea.”

Just hours earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had waived Yakovlev’s immunity upon request from David Kelley, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.

Oil-for-food chief accused of corruption
Meanwhile, investigators probing claims of wrongdoing in the Iraq oil-for-food program accused its former chief, Benon Sevan, of corruption for taking illegal kickbacks and recommended his immunity be lifted for prosecution.

Yakovlev had been arrested after investigators found evidence he took nearly $1 million in illegal payments from the winners of $79 million in U.N. contracts, a senior U.N. official said Monday.

Yakovlev was taken into custody after the United Nations lifted his diplomatic immunity, said Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to Annan.

The third report by the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was a new blow to the scandal-tainted $64 billion program. For the first time, it gave a motive for Sevan's actions, saying his finances were “precarious” shortly before his alleged misdeeds.

Some critics have accused the United Nations of squandering millions — and even billions — of dollars in its mismanagement of the program. Yet Volcker's team found that Sevan appeared to have received kickbacks of just $147,184 from December 1998 to January 2002.

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