A businessman from India entered a guilty plea to charges that he bribed a former UN official with cash and a steeply discounted luxury apartment. The man has also agreed to cooperate in further investigations of official corruption at the UN.
NEW YORK, Dec. 21 — A businessman representing an Indian state-owned company pleaded guilty to bribing a former senior U.N. official with an unspecified amount of cash, a cellphone and a discounted Manhattan apartment in exchange for more than $50 million worth of business contracts, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Michael Garcia, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that Nishan Kohli, 30, admitted making the illicit payments to Sanjay Bahel, then a high-ranking U.N. purchasing official, as compensation for steering business to Kohli from 1998 to 2003. Kohli faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Bahel last month pleaded not guilty to related charges.
Kohli's attorney, Jacob Laufer, declined to discuss his client's role in the scheme. But he said Kohli signed an agreement with federal authorities on Thursday to cooperate in their ongoing investigation into corruption at the United Nations. "He has made a mistake, and he's contrite about it," he said.
Bahel's attorney, Richard B. Herman, said his client never used his influence to favor Kohli's businesses. He "unequivocally denied" that Bahel received any cash payments. Herman also said that Bahel had already left the U.N. procurement division when he began renting an apartment from Kohli in 2003, suggesting that Bahel had no influence to sell.
It is a bit hard to determine exactly what happened here with the sketchy details reported in the WaPo. But it would appear that Kohli knows full well that he was going to be convicted and took the best deal he could get. The trial of the Bahel should be interesting. There was a lot of money at stake here. Deals worth more than $60 million are mentioned. It didn't begin or end with the oil for food fraud. In a rational world, the UN would be going after Kofi Annan themselves for the destruction his administration caused to the UNs reputation.
