South Korean gets five years in oil-for-food case

NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) A U S judge has sentenced South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park to five years in prison for money-laundering and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Iraq in the U N oil-for-food scandal.

U S District Court Judge Denny Chin yesterday gave Park the maximum sentence allowed by law, ordered three more years of supervised release when he gets out, fined him 15,000 dollar and made him subject to 1.2 million dollar in further asset forfeitures.

''You blatantly disregarded the law,'' Chin told Park in the sentencing hearing, noting that Park had received manila envelopes stuffed with 100 dollar bills.

Park, 71, and his lawyers have always maintained his innocence and have sought leniency due to his ailing health.

In July, a jury convicted Park in the first U S federal trial related to the U N oil-for-food program, which was designed to provide humanitarian relief to Iraq while it was under international sanctions for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The 67 billion dollar program spawned a kickback and bribery side business that implicated officials, companies or politicians from some 40 countries, according to a panel headed by former U S Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Prosecutors say Park received some 2 million dollar from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and had sought up to 10 million dollar on the premise that he needed it to bribe his friend, former U N Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. There was no evidence Boutros-Ghali received any money.

U S prosecutors say Park acted on behalf of Saddam by lobbying U S and U N officials to drop economic sanctions against Saddam and that Park broke the law by failing to notify the Justice Department.

Park has been in jail since he was detained in Mexico in January 2006 and handed over to U S authorities.

Park gained notoriety in the 1970s as a lobbyist who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Congress as part of the influence-peddling scandal dubbed ''Koreagate.'' Charges against him were dropped.

In a separate case, Chin yesterday dismissed two criminal charges against Bayoil Supply&Trading, a Bahamian company owned by David Chalmers, who is charged with of providing kickbacks to the Saddam government in exchange for getting contracts under the oil-for-food scheme.

Chalmers, fellow Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, four other individuals and five companies have been indicted on charges including conspiracy and wire fraud for their role in the oil-for-food program.

Chin dismissed the counts against Bayoil Supply&Trading for engaging in a financial transaction with the government of a country supporting terrorism and for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the law only applies to American people or firms, Chin wrote.

The conspiracy and wire fraud charges remain against Bayoil Supply&Trading.

REUTERS PDS RN0646