Former Pasqua aide claims Iraq intended to reward Charles Pasqua, denies having received oil

May 18, 2005

A former aide to French senator Charles Pasqua, whose name was cited by a recent report by a United States Senate investigation panel, has admitted that the Iraqi government had intended to reward Mr Pasqua with a grant of oil through the oil for food program.

The aide, Bernard Guillet, was arrested in April 2005 and was put under formal criminal investigation on April 28 by French judge Philippe Courroye, under the charges of egregious influence peddling and of being an accessory to an abuse of corporate belongings. He is suspected of having received vouchers for buying Iraqi oil from the regime of Saddam Hussein, which he then allegedly sold to oil companies, to an amount of 5 million barrels.

Mr Pasqua, according to some sources, would have been the beneficiary of 10.8 million barrels. According to a CIA report, the profit would have been between 0.15€ and 0.85€ per barrel.