NEW YORK, April 14 (UPI) -- A Texas businessman and two others were indicted in New York on charges of alleged secret kickbacks in the U.N. oil-for-food program.
A British and a Bulgarian citizen also were accused in the reported payments of millions of dollars secretly to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.
The Texan, David B. Chalmers, a principal of Bay Oil U.S.A., and an associate of the oil trading company, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian and permanent U.S. resident, were arrested Thursday at their homes in Houston, the New York Times said.
The U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley in New York said he would seek the extradition from England of a third defendant, John Irving.
Kelley said Chalmers and the others played "a pivotal role" in efforts to fix the price of oil traded and sold under the oil-for-food program and "facilitated the payment of illegal surcharges" on the oil to the Iraqi government.
