Iraqi Dealings In Spotlight At Trial Of Wealthy Oilman

NEW YORK (AP) – Jury selection is set to begin this week in the trial of Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., a wealthy Texas oilman accused of conspiring to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime to win contracts under the United Nations’ oil-for-food program.

The 83-year-old Houston businessman is expected in court Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is scheduled to start questioning prospective jurors. Opening statements could occur later in the week. The subject of the questions has become the latest topic of dispute between the government and lawyers for Wyatt in a prosecution that the oilman has labeled politically motivated.

Last week, Chin ruled prosecutors can show jurors evidence that Wyatt encouraged opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and bragged about his influence to Iraqi officials to win oil contracts even after most American citizens were cut off from the deals. On Friday, the government asked the judge to warn prospective jurors,

“This is not a trial about the current war in Iraq.” The request drew a protest from Wyatt’s lawyers, who late Friday filed court papers complaining that the prosecution request was “unnecessary and inaccurate” because the government only wanted Iraq and the war mentioned when it benefits its case.

“The government cannot have it both ways because issues relating to the war are certainly at issue,” Wyatt’s lawyers wrote. Defense attorneys said they want prospective jurors to hear that the case will contain evidence that Wyatt had business dealing with the Iraqi government as far back as the 1970s. They also asked that the jurors be warned that Wyatt was an outspoken critic of President Bush and his administration’s policies in the Middle East. And they asked that all jurors answer one specific question:

“How many of you have a negative impression about people from Texas who do business in the oil industry?” Prosecutors say they want prospective jurors to answer whether they can judge fairly a case that will include evidence of words and actions by Saddam Hussein and members of his government in Iraq. Wyatt, who could face more than 60 years in prison, has been free on bail since he was charged with conspiring with others to gain favored status for oil contracts by providing money and equipment to the former government of Iraq from 1994 until March 2003.

Prosecutors say evidence at the trial will include the diary of an employee of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization who said Wyatt bragged during a Jan. 27, 2003, meeting that he had convinced a U.S. senator to speak out against an attack on Iraq. Diary entries indicate Wyatt also discussed the nature of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, including anticipated troop numbers, timing and direction of attack, prosecutors said. In permitting the evidence to be shown to jurors, Chin noted in a ruling last week that the government planned to prove that Wyatt received the first allocation of oil under the oil-for-food program in 1996 and continued to receive oil until U.S. armed forces entered Iraq in 2003.

Wyatt’s lawyers are expected to argue at trial that he always had the best interest of the United States in mind in his dealings with Iraq. It has not yet been decided whether Wyatt will testify. Among possible defense witnesses are some U.S. citizens who were held by Iraq before the first Gulf War, including Alfred E. Allen, a former U.S. Army officer now living in Lexington, Ky. Allen, in a telephone interview, said he was ready to testify about how Wyatt spirited him out of Iraq in a private jet.

“Every day, I thank him for literally saving my life,” he said. The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It let the Iraqi government sell oil primarily to buy humanitarian goods.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)