Defense accuses UN of 'witch hunt'

Defense accuses UN of 'witch hunt'

	Published : Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:50 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW YORK (AP) - Stung by corruption scandals, the United Nations thought it could polish its tarnished reputation by investigating corruption itself, said a lawyer for a former U.N. official being tried on a bribery charge.

The case against Sanjaya Bahel was 'a witch hunt,' lawyer Richard Herman told a jury in closing arguments Tuesday.

'This is an effort to clean up the bad public relations the United Nations suffered in the past few years,' Herman said.

Prosecutors objected to Herman's claims, saying there was no evidence in the case to support them. But U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa said Herman was free to argue as he wished.

During the government's closing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Willscher said Bahel 'sold himself and his office at the United Nations.'

Bahel, 57, was chief of the U.N.'s Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003. After 2003, Bahel was in charge of the postal office at the United Nations until he was fired Dec. 21.

He has been accused of accepting cash and a huge discount on a Manhattan apartment in exchange for enabling a longtime Florida friend to get an inside track on $100 million in electronics contracts.

Bahel is charged with bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud. He could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Herman depicted the charges as a U.N. attempt to repair an image tattered by scandals, citing the oil-for-food program as an example. From 1996 to 2003, the program let the Iraqi government sell oil, primarily to buy food and medicine for its citizens after the first Gulf War. By 2000, authorities said, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had begun insisting those he dealt with pay kickbacks.

U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Tuesday the United Nations would comment at the end of the trial.

Herman also attacked the reliability of the prosecutor's chief witness, Nishan Kohli, a Miami man who pleaded guilty to bribery and testified against Bahel.

Kohli testified that in return for inside information about the bidding process, his family gave Bahel a laptop computer, a cell phone, plane tickets, thousands of dollars in cash, subsidized rent on two luxury Manhattan apartments and 'ultimately a very low-priced sale.'

But Kohli also admitted failing to disclose to prosecutors and even his wife until three days before the trial that he had been with a prostitute on two occasions in 2005. He also said it was possible to lie to strangers.

'He's willing to lie to strangers,' Herman told jurors. 'And I don't believe for a moment that any of you jurors know this man.'

The lawyer, calling Kohli a 'trust-fund kid not wanting for anything,' also reminded jurors that Kohli had testified that he had hoped to make enough money to get a second home or a private jet.

'That's what he wants,' Herman said. 'Don't give it to him.'

Willscher said Bahel acted like a surrogate employee of the Kohli family businesses by providing expert advice and inside information, ghostwriting correspondence with the United Nations and warning the Kohlis when something might get in the way of their bids on contracts.

'The evidence clearly shows the defendant is guilty of the crimes he's been charged with,' the prosecutor said.