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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Oil-for-Food Money Went to Palestinian Bombers' Families |
| 2004-11-18 |
| Money from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program helped pay the families of Palestinian homicide bombers, the House Committee on International Relations is expected to reveal Wednesday during a hearing on corruption in the Iraqi relief program. Investigators working for Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the panel, are expected to say they have traced funds from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's kickback scheme through a Jordanian bank and into the hands of families of bombers who attacked Israeli citizens. It has long been established that Saddam paid bounties of $15,000 to $25,000 to the Palestinian families of the murderers. Hyde's committee will reveal at the hearing that some of the reward money was deposited from illegal profits Saddam made by demanding 10 percent kickbacks on all the contracts of companies that did business with the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. Those funds were then deposited with other Iraqi money, such as Jordanian Oil-for-Food oil payments, into the Central Bank of Iraq account in the Rafidain Bank in Amman, Jordan. The funds were then transferred to another account in the bank controlled by Iraq's ambassador to Jordan Sabah Yaseen. It was from Yaseen's account that Saddam's officials would cut and hand out checks to the homicide bombers' families, Hyde's investigators are expected to say. more in link |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |