A former senior investigator from the independent probe into allegations of corruption in the UN oil-for-food program confirmed that he had resigned to protest a report clearing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of meddling in the operation.
In his first public comments since leaving the investigation, Robert Parton, one of two investigators who resigned from the Independent Inquiry Committee led by former Fed chief Paul Volcker, criticized his former employer Saturday for misrepresenting the grounds of his resignation.
Parton, who was in charge of investigating Annan, confirmed a report by The Associated Press earlier this week that he and another investigator had resigned to protest recent findings by the committee that cleared the secretary general of meddling in the US$64 billion program.
``Contrary to recent published reports, I resigned my position as Senior Investigative Counsel for the IIC not because my work was complete but on principle,'' Parton said Saturday in an e-mailed statement.
Reflecting possible schisms within the committee, two of the three committee members gave conflicting explanations earlier this week for why the investigators had left.
One committee member, Mark Pieth, confirmed that Parton and the other investigator, Miranda Duncan, had left after disagreeing with how the committee handled facts that were uncovered concerning Annan's dealings with a Swiss company contracted under the program, which once employed Annan's son, Kojo.
The investigators were said to be upset because they believed the report was too soft on the secretary general.
The report said Annan didn't properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the contract, criticizing him for refusing to push top advisers further after they conducted a hasty, 24-hour investigation relating to his son and found nothing wrong.
But the interim report cleared the secretary general of trying to influence the awarding of the US$10 million-a-year contract and said he didn't violate UN rules. The oil-for-food program was set up to help ordinary Iraqis cope with crippling UN sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's regime after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Shortly after the report was released on March 29, Annan said at a news conference that he had been cleared of any wrongdoing by the committee.
Following Pieth's statement, another committee member, Richard Goldstone, discounted reports that the two investigators had left the Independent Inquiry Committee because they believed the report was too soft on the secretary general.
Goldstone told reporters earlier this week that that Parton and Duncan had left because their work was complete.
A person close to Parton said his contract ran until August and he left because he was upset with conclusions in the report and disagreed with how the committee reached those findings. Speaking on condition of anonymity at Parton's request, he also said Parton, a lawyer and former FBI agent, issued his statement because he believed that Goldstone had knowingly misrepresented the reason he left.
Responding to Parton's statement, a spokesman for the committee accused the former employee of trying to expand his mandate Saturday.
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