A South Korean acting as a go-between with Boutros Boutros Ghali, the UN Secretary-General at the time, asked for $10 million from Iraq to “take care of some people” before the creation of the UN Oil-for-Food programme, a court in New York has been told.

Iraq set aside $15 million for the alleged bribery scheme and sent $3 million in cash to New York in the year that the UN’s largest humanitarian programme was set up, the court was told.

But prosecutors did not address the question of whether any of the money ever reached Dr Boutros Ghali, who denies taking any bribes.

The testimony came in the trial of Tongsun Park, a South Korean accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein by establishing a “secret back channel” to Dr Boutros Ghali.

Details of the alleged plot were given by Samir Vincent, a well-connected Iraqi-American businessman and former Olympic athlete testifying under a plea agreement. Mr Vincent, who has pleaded guilty to working secretly for Iraq, said that he recruited Mr Park in 1992 for his connections to the newly appointed UN chief.

The pair considered themselves the architects of the Oil-for-Food programme, he told the court. “Tongsun Park and myself, we were the ones who kept pushing it from the Iraqi side and the UN side,” he said.

Mr Vincent cast doubt on Dr Boutros Ghali’s evidence to the UN’s own inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal by describing meetings he had with the former Secretary-General at his official residence. Dr Boutros Ghali told the UN inquiry that the two had never met.

The “secret backchannel” was allegedly used over the next few years to pass messages back and forth between Dr Boutros Ghali and Iraq.

Mr Vincent kept copious notes of the purported exchanges. At one point, Dr Boutros Ghali allegedly sought to reassure Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, about the proposed presence of UN monitors as part of the Oil-for-Food system, advising him to “put 600 Mukhabarat [secret police] with them”.

At another point the UN chief allegedly vowed to sideline Rolf Ekeus, the chief UN weapons inspector. “S. G. to Tarik,” Vincent’s note read. “Always suspected Ekeus had links to US. But have not yet found way to neutralise him, but will find it soon.”

Iraq, seeking to appease Dr Boutros Ghali after a failed summit in 1993, allegedly sent him a message saying: “Iraq very appreciative of what he has done and future deals will be even sweeter.”

Mr Park’s demand for $10 million to “take care of some people” was allegedly made in late January 1996. Mr Vincent said he assumed that Mr Park was referring to Dr Boutros Ghali. “The only people I know of at the time was the Secretary-General,” he said.

Nizar Hamdoon, the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN at the time, took a similar view, telling Mr Vincent: “I guess he needs to take care of B. B.”

Mr Hamdoon, who is deceased, suggested that he and Mr Vincent ask Iraq for $10 million for themselves and only $5 million for Mr Park, Mr Vincent said in giving evidence.

Mr Vincent said that he travelled to Baghdad to conclude two handwritten contracts with Amer Rashid, the Minister of Oil. One of them allegedly stipulated payment of $5 million to a London-based company allegedly nominated by Mr Park, called Caribbean Marketing Development Co Ltd, with an account at Lloyds Bank in Hanover Square, London.

As a “downpayment” Iraq allegedly gave Mr Vincent $450,000 in $100 bills to carry back to New York. Two further cash payments of $1 million and $1.55 million were said to have followed in 1996 in the diplomatic pouch to Iraq’s mission in New York. Mr Vincent testified that he handed Mr Park $1 million in cash.

Mr Park’s lawyer, Michael Kim, said that his client, who faces a maximum 12-year sentence if convicted, was only a middleman and dismissed the prosecution’s allegations as being “like a Tom Clancy novel”.

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