PARIS – A French magistrate has decided to send oil giant Total and its chief executive for trial on charges that the company engaged in corruption during the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, a judicial source said yesterday.
The magistrate is sending the company for trial on charges of corruption and fraud, while Total chief executive Christophe de Margerie is facing charges of complicity.The oil-for-food programme operated in Iraq between 1996 and 2003 and was meant to ease the suffering of Iraqi people by allowing the country to sell some of its oil, despite the embargo imposed after the first Gulf War. – (Reuters)
