Reuters : Judge allows Saddam link in Wyatt oil trial

Judge allows Saddam link in Wyatt oil trial

By Christine Kearney | August 30, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that prosecutors can introduce evidence in the trial of Oscar Wyatt that suggests the Texas oil tycoon tipped off Iraq about the impending 2003 U.S. invasion.

On the eve of Wyatt's trial in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin also allowed evidence that defense lawyers said unfairly suggested payments made by Wyatt to Iraq's state oil marketing organization were bribes passed on to Saddam Hussein.

Wyatt goes on trial September 5 at federal court in Manhattan, accused of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq to win oil contracts and corrupting the oil-for-food program.

Wyatt, 83, has pleaded innocent to all charges.

The U.N. oil-for-food program was set up in the 1990s to let Iraq sell oil to buy civilian goods for its people living under U.N. sanctions imposed over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

It administered some $67 billion worth of oil, and U.S. and U.N. investigations have found that lobbyists, U.N. and Iraqi officials enriched themselves through kickbacks and bribery.

Wyatt's former company, the Coastal Corporation, dealt in Iraqi oil and Wyatt had traveled a number of times to Iraq, meeting senior officials including Saddam.

Wyatt's defense also objected to evidence showing portions of a diary of a former Iraqi state oil agency employee. It includes suggestions Wyatt provided the Iraq government with information about when the United States would invade and bomb Iraq and how many troops would be sent.

But the judge agreed with prosecutors who said the diary was needed to show Wyatt's close ties with Iraqi officials from the early 1990s right up until the end of the program in 2003 after the U.S. invasion.

"It shows Mr. Wyatt was trying extremely hard to get additional (oil) allocations," the judge said. "Why was the Iraq government treating Mr. Wyatt so well? Why did he get the first (oil) allocation? ... This is further evidence of that relationship."

The judge said he would instruct the jury that Wyatt is not accused of treason.

Another diary entry the government may introduce includes evidence Wyatt convinced U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to deliver a speech against the war in Iraq -- an allegation a spokesperson for Kennedy has said is untrue, arguing Kennedy publicly opposed the war early on.

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