What do these men have in common?
Interpol has issued red notices and has alerted authorities to monitor their movements. They soon may have arrest warrants issued in their names.
photo credit: World Economic Forum
Nigeria recently filed bribery charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies, including Halliburton Co. The alleged $180 million of bribes were connected to $6 billion in contracts with Nigeria LNG Ltd., whose largest shareholder is the state-owned petroleum company, to build liquefied natural gas facilities on Bonny Island, off the country’s southern coast.
In the U.S., KBR and Halliburton agreed to pay $579 million to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2009 for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that bans bribery of foreign officials to obtain or retain business, in Nigeria from 1994 to 2004.
Julian Assange’s lawyer stated that Sweden hasn’t issued a valid European warrant for their client’s arrest for the sex crimes the WikiLeaks founder has been accused of. The lawyer said the arrest warrant was sent back by Scotland Yard because it did not comply with the law and was defective. British authorities are currently holding Assange without bail, fearing he will flee the country.
Assange was originally accused of sexual crimes following allegations made by two Swedish women. The case was opened, dropped, and then reopened by the prosecutors, but formal charges against the WikiLeaks founder haven’t been made in Sweden.
The U.S. government is working with Interpol and British and Swedish authorities to detain and, ultimately, to extradite Assange to the States to face charges for leaking government documents. Yet, the Justice Department sees no irony or hypocrisy in shielding Dick Cheney from Interpol and Nigerian authorities.