 An Iraqi-American businessman pleaded guilty to acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government in relation to the UN oil-for-food programme, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced. Samir Vincent faced as many as 28 years in prison. He entered his plea in a New York court. Vincent is alleged to have been paid for his work - some three-to-five million dollars according to early estimates - on behalf of the Iraqi government in connection with the scandal-plagued UN programme. He "was able to reap profits totaling millions of dollars by reselling these five allocations of Iraqi oil to an oil company," Ashcroft said Tuesday of the naturalized US citizen. Ashcroft added: "Today we know that from the moment the Oil-for-Food program was introduced, (deposed Iraqi dictator) Saddam Hussein and his agents attempted to subvert it, working the system so that profits were diverted to fund a brutal regime rather than to feed the people of Iraq," Ashcroft said. |