KILLER GOT U.N. OIL 'REWARD'
By NILES LATHEM
April 19, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - In a sinister oil-for-murder plot, Saddam
Hussein used the scandal-plagued U.N. oil-for-food program to set up the
assassination of a prominent Iraqi exile politician, the slain man's family has
charged.
A mysterious George Tarkhaynan appears on an Iraqi Oil Ministry list, published
by a Baghdad newspaper, of 270 politicians and businessmen who received
sweetheart oil deals under the U.N. humanitarian program.
Safia al-Souhail, a leading political figure in post-Saddam Iraq, told The Post
she has evidence that Tarkhaynan is a former Beirut shirtmaker and once-trusted
family friend who helped Iraq assassinate her father, anti-Saddam dissident
Sheik Taleb al-Souhail al-Tamimi, in Lebanon in 1994.
"George Tarkhaynan was a good agent for them. He facilitated the killing of my
father who was an enemy of the regime. This oil voucher was like a present for
what he did," al-Souhail said by phone from Baghdad.
The plot is the latest allegation to surface in the mushrooming U.N. scandal in
which Saddam is said to have pocketed a staggering $10.1 billion through
illegal oil sales and kickbacks.
Tarkhaynan and three Iraqi diplomats in Beirut spent two years in jail for
murdering the 64-year old al-Souhail, who had helped organize an unsuccessful
1993 coup against Saddam.
Although media reports at the time said Lebanese prosecutors had solid evidence
against them, including coded messages from Baghdad, they were released in 1996
and sent to Iraq as part of a controversial deal to reopen economic ties
between the two countries.
Tarkhaynan was later allocated vouchers enabling him to buy up to 7 million
barrels of Iraqi oil at below-market prices that could be resold at profits of
between 25 and 50 cents a barrel.
That means he was slated to receive up to $3.5 million in oil profits.
Al-Souhail was outraged to learn that Tarkhaynan and others had gotten oil
deals.
"These people were covering for Saddam, they were lobbying for him . . . The
money they got belongs to the Iraqi people," she said.
Tarkhaynan, who has in the past protested his innocence, could not be reached
for comment.
Al-Souhail said Tarkhaynan spent at least seven years in Iraq after being
sprung from jail and fled Baghdad days before Saddam fell. She said he'd been
employed by the State Oil Marketing Organization, which sold Iraqi oil abroad,
and was often a point of contact for foreigners seeking deals with SOMO under
the U.N. program.
Al-Souhail described Tarkhaynan as a trusted advisor to her father, who fled
Iraq in 1968.
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