The Times, UK
Aug 8 2005
>From rags to riches to ruined reputation
>From James Bone in New York and Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia
BENON SEVAN, a United Nations official who served in Afghanistan and
Iraq, allegedly took kickbacks after losing money in a stock fraud.
The investigation of the Oil-for-Food scandal, chaired by Paul
Volcker, blamed Mr Sevan’s `precarious personal financial condition’
yesterday for his decision to accept almost $150,000 (£84,000) in
1998 and 2002.
Mr Sevan earned $129,524 (£72,600) when he took over the Oil-For-Food
programme in 1997. His wife, Micheline, made $69,243 (£38,800) as an
assistant at the UN’s department of economic and social affairs.
The couple owned a house in Long Island, rented a flat in Manhattan
and had savings of less than $5,000 in their New York bank accounts.
But in 1996 Mr Sevan bought shares worth $180,000 using money from an
equity line of credit and taking a cash advance on his credit card.
His investment lost more than half of its value, partly because of a
stock fraud that led to the conviction of four brokers. From December
1996 to October 1998, Mr Sevan’s bank account was overdrawn 45 times
and his wife’s account was in the red 153 times.
A Cypriot-Armenian, Mr Sevan is in Cyprus, which does not extradite
its citizens.
Mr Sevan’s mother, Verginia, was a teenager when she gave birth out
of wedlock. She was cast out by her family and his father is
understood to have refused to recognise him.Mr Sevan was supported by
his mother’s three sisters as he studied at the prestigious Melkonian
Educational Institute in Nicosia.
He went on to win a scholarship to Columbia University in New York
before joining the UN.
Mr Sevan maintains his innocence and claims to have received $160,000
in cash gifts from an aunt, Berdjouhi Zeitountsian, a retired civil
servant. She died last year aged 84 after falling down a lift shaft.