U.N. oil-for-food program’s ex-chief resigns

NEW YORK – The former chief of the Iraq oil-for-food program resigned Sunday, a day before investigators were to release a report that is expected to accuse him of taking kickbacks under the $64 billion humanitarian operation.

Benon Sevan accused U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of failing to stand by him and blasted the Independent Inquiry Committee investigating allegations of corruption, suggesting it had succumbed to political pressure from the United Nations’ critics.

“As I predicted, a high-profile investigative body invested with absolute power would feel compelled to target someone and that someone turned out to be me,” Sevan wrote. The resignation is largely symbolic – the U.N. was paying Sevan just $1 a year to keep him on payroll so he would cooperate. On Thursday, Sevan’s lawyer Eric Lewis said the committee would find in its upcoming report that Sevan got kickbacks for steering contracts under oil-for-food to a small trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co. Ltd. Inc.