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Cheney faces Nigeria charges

03 December 2010 00:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Nigeriaâ€™s anti-corruption agency plans to bring charges against Dick Cheney in connection with a $180m graft case involving a former subsidiary of Halliburton, the US oil services group that the former US vice-president once headed, APA reports quoting ft.com website.
The threat of charges against Mr Cheney follows the detention for questioning last week of 10 Halliburton staff by Nigeriaâ€™s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The Houston-based companyâ€™s country chief was also summoned.
Last year Halliburton and KBR, the former unit from which it split in 2007, paid a record $579m fine after pleading guilty to charges that KBR had spent $180m in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to win contracts.
â€œWe are filing charges against Cheney,â€ an EFCC spokesman told the Reuters news agency. The spokesman did not give further details and did not respond to requests for comment.
The charges would mark a fresh twist in one of the most notorious scandals in Nigeria, the third biggest crude supplier to the US and consistently ranked among the worldâ€™s most corrupt countries.
US prosecutors have secured the countryâ€™s biggest corruption penalties in relation to bribes paid to secure contracts to construct the $6bn Bonny island liquefied natural gas project. In July Eni, the Italian oil group, and a subsidiary agreed to pay $365m in fines to settle a US probe into the same case.
The Nigerian authorities have only recently launched their own investigations in earnest. US court papers state that the perpetrators paid bribes to top Nigerian officials.
Mr Cheney, who was Halliburtonâ€™s chief executive from 1995 to 2000 before serving as George W. Bushâ€™s number two in the White House, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Halliburton has called the detention of its staff â€œan affront to justiceâ€, adding: â€œThe Halliburton oilfield services operations in Nigeria have never in any way been any part of the LNG project and none of the Halliburton employees have ever had any connection to or participation in that project.â€
Asked about the possibility of charges against Mr Cheney, Halliburton said it had not seen any amended charges.
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