Halliburton: UN petitioned over names of suspects
SERAP has faulted the position by the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Chief Mike Aondoakaa that the government does not know the names of suspects involved in the Halliburton $180 bribe; and has petitioned the UN Conference of States Parties in Vienna, Austria, asking the Conference to “prevail on the government of Nigeria to disclose the names of suspects to the Nigerian public, and to bring them to justice without further delay.”
The UN Conference of States Parties is the body charged with overseeing the implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption. In the petition dated 9 April 2009, SERAP stated that “Recently, the government said that it has discovered $150million of the corrupt money in Swiss account.
However, it also stated that it did not have the names of the suspects who are the account holders of the $150 million.
This position is inconsistent with the position by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which while responding recently to SERAP’s petition to the EFCC on the matter, stated that some of the suspects involved in Halliburton bribe are being interrogated.
If this is correct, it implies that the government knows the names of the suspects but is simply refusing to disclose them to Nigerians. Normal banking practices suggest that funds lodged in any bank are ascribed or owned by identifiable persons.”