Head of Australia-Iraq kickbacks probe sues police
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The leader of an Australian probe into illegal kickbacks paid to Iraq's former dictatorship under the United Nations oil-for-food program claims that he was offered a promotion to shut down the criminal investigation.
Former policeman Ross Fusca alleges in a lawsuit against the Australian Federal Police that he was acting chief of the Oil for Food Taskforce in 2008 when a superior officer offered him the promotion. The suit was filed in Federal Court last month and The Associated Press read it Thursday.
The superior told Fusca that if Fusca "could make the Oil for Food Taskforce go away, he would be appointed as next coordinator," according to court documents. Coordinator is a rank within the force.
Fusca claims he did not respond to the offer, and that he was later demoted before he quit the police force in 2010. He did not immediately respond to AP's request for an interview on Thursday.
The task force was established in 2007 to investigate executives of Australia's then-monopoly wheat exporter, AWB Ltd. A government-commissioned inquiry found in 2006 that AWB officials deceived the United Nations and likely broke Australian law by paying more than $200 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in return for wheat contracts under the discredited oil-for-food program.
The kickbacks were part of broader corruption that a U.N.-sanctioned investigation said bilked the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion.
Australia's task force was disbanded in 2009 without filing any charges. Fusca claims it lacked the resources it needed and was closed too early.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus said the police force would defend itself against allegations that Fusca had been mistreated.
Negus said Thursday that the task force was wound up on legal advice "that there was little chance that this matter would be successfully resolved through a criminal investigation."
Police passed all evidence to the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, for a civil prosecution.
Former AWB managing director Andrew Lindberg last week admitted in the Victoria state Supreme Court to breaching corporate law over the Iraqi wheat contract bribes. He agreed to pay a 100,000 Australian dollar ($100,000) fine and to be banned from managing corporations until September 2014.
ASIC is continuing to investigate another four former AWB executives.
