https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1204/1224284773552.html
FORMER US vice-president Dick Cheney may be charged in connection
with a bribery scandal that allegedly involves Halliburton, the energy
firm he used to head up in the 1990s, the Nigerian authorities have
said.
A spokesperson for Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) yesterday said charges would probably be brought
against Mr Cheney, who was Halliburton’s chief executive before becoming
the US vice-president in 2001, next week.
“If the summary of our
legal opinion favours a sustainable charge, we will go ahead according
to plan,” commission spokesman Femi Babafemi said. “It is on our plate
to prosecute all those found liable in the Halliburton bribery case.”
The
charges relate to a case involving engineering company Kellogg Brown
Root (KBR), which last year admitted bribing Nigerian officials in
relation to the construction of natural gas plant in southern Nigeria.
KBR
was a subsidiary of Halliburton, but the two companies have now split.
However, KBR last year pleaded guilty to paying $180m (€135m) in bribes
prior to 2007, when the two companies were still connected.
The firm agreed to pay $579m (€433m) in fines related to the case in the US.
Despite
the admission of guilt, anti-corruption units in Nigeria, France and
Switzerland, also decided to conduct their own investigations into the
case. Halliburton denies it was involved in the bribery admitted to by
KBR.
Mr Cheney’s lawyer, Terence O’Donnell, also said US
investigators had “found no suggestion of any impropriety by Dick Cheney
in his role of CEO of Halliburton”.
“Any suggestion of misconduct on his part, made now, years later, is entirely baseless,” he said.
Last
week the EFCC raided Halliburton offices in Nigeria, and 10 people were
brought in for questioning before being released without charge. In
response the energy firm said the raid by the EFCC was “an affront
against justice”.