June 26, 2006 - From James Bone in New York
 
LINKS between Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General, and an alleged agent for Saddam Hussein will come under the spotlight when the first American trial of a major figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal gets under way today.

The judge has ruled that prosecutors can present evidence of Dr Boutros Ghali’s relationship with Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman on trial in New York for acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Saddam’s Iraq.

The North Korean-born Mr Park was dubbed “the oriental Gatsby” after he played a central role in the “Koreagate” bribery scandal in Washington in the 1970s, although the judge has ruled that evidence of that role is not relevant to this case.

Mr Park, 71, is accused of plotting to make pay-offs to two top UN officials to secure favourable terms for Iraq in the creation of the Oil-for-Food programme during the 1990s.

The trial could reveal whether the scandal-plagued $64 billion humanitarian programme, which allowed Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil to finance the import of humanitarian supplies while under UN sanctions, was corrupt from the very start.

Mr Park was arrested in January when he made a stop-over in Mexico City on his way from Canada to Panama and was forced aboard a flight to the United States.

Michael Kim, his lawyer, told The Times: “We think the truth will come out at trial. The truth is that Mr Park is not guilty.”