Prosecutor: Ex-UN official was greedy

Prosecutor: Ex-UN official was greedy

	Published : Tue, 22 May 2007 14:17 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW YORK (AP) - A prosecutor told a jury Monday that a former United Nations procurement official was a greedy and deceitful diplomat who steered nearly $100 million in contracts to a friend in exchange for cash kickbacks and a luxury apartment.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Cathy Seibel told the jury in her opening statement in Sanjaya Bahel's bribery trial that the government would prove that Bahel secretly helped a Florida friend secure lucrative contracts from 1999 to 2003.

She said the friend, Nishan Kohli of Miami, agreed that his family's businesses would kick back 10 percent of his profits to Bahel if he smoothed the way for them to win contracts to supply the United Nations with everything from laptop computers to engineers.

Bahel faces charges of accepting corrupt payments, mail fraud and wire fraud, which could carry a penalty of more than 10 years in prison if he is convicted.

Seibel said Kohli provided Bahel a discounted Manhattan apartment, a laptop computer, plane tickets for him and his wife and a few thousand dollars in envelopes every month or so.

In return, Bahel, 57, provided advance word of bidding opportunities, suggestions to make bids stronger and advice on how to improve their odds of winning, the prosecutor said.

To smooth communication and hide the secret arrangement, Bahel made hundreds of calls on a cell phone the Kohli family provided him, Seibel said.

Bahel's lawyer, Richard Herman, said that it was impossible for Bahel to give a contract to anyone and that his client had never opened a sealed bid himself.

'Mr. Bahel is only guilty of staying friends with the Kohlis,' he said. 'He's guilty of remaining friends with people who went bad.'

Bahel saved the United Nations more than $20 million through his hard work, Herman said.

'At no time did he intend to commit any harm to the United Nations,' he said.

Bahel worked various financial jobs for the government of India before he became a United Nations delegate in 1994, Herman said. Bahel joined the U.N. procurement office a year later and served as chief of the U.N.'s Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003.

By early 2003, he had left the office and taken a position as chief of the Commercial Activities Service in the U.N. Postal Administration. He was fired in December, a month after his arrest.

Kohli has pleaded guilty to a bribery charge and is scheduled to testify against Bahel. Kohli said he let Bahel rent an apartment below market price and later buy it for far below market value, efforts that 'were intended to influence him in return for promises of help.'