Nigeria: Halliburton Plans Plea Bargain in Cheney Corruption Case
Sam Olukoya, GlobalPost: "Halliburton is planning to make a plea bargain in former US Vice President Dick Cheney's corruption case, Nigerian officials told GlobalPost. Nigeria's anti-corruption agency charged Cheney as the head of Halliburton when its engineering subsidiary, KBR, allegedly paid bribes totaling $180 million to secure contracts worth $6 billion."
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Information Clearing House Newsletter
News You Won't Find On CNNDecember 10, 2010
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Halliburton May Pay $500 million to Keep Cheney out of Prison: Report
By Daniel Tencer
Oilfield services company Halliburton is in negotiations with the Nigerian government to keep its former CEO, Dick Cheney, out of prison, according to a news report.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27034.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27034.htm
Halliburton: US Warns Nigeria On Dick Cheney •Says Allegation ‘Very Serious’
Written by Our ReporterSaturday, 11 December 2010
The United States government has warned Nigeria to carefully review the 16-count corruption allegations made against a former US vice president, Dick Cheney, in the Halliburton bribe-for-contract scandal, APA learnt in a statement the US embassy released in Abuja on Thursday.
The US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, made the plea in Washington while fielding questions from some African journalists, including Nigeria, during a conference call.
Carson said in the statement that review was necessary to ensure that the allegations were not politically motivated, as opposed to a legitimate legal matter.
Asked if Cheney would be allowed to stand trial in Nigeria, Carson said charges laid should be carefully and deeply substantiated as they were “very serious.”
He said that the US authorities had been following the case closely and had spoken to the Nigerian authorities about it.
Before becoming US vice president, Cheney headed Texas-based oil service company, Halliburton, from 1995 to 2000.
According to reports, Houston-based engineering firm, KBR, a former Halliburton unit, pleaded guilty last year to charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in the Niger Delta.
The Federal Government had filed a 16-count charge at an Abuja high court against Cheney over his alleged complicity in the scandal in the mid-90s.
The government had also approached an Abuja chief magistrate’s court for an arrest warrant to ensure that the former US vice president appeared to stand trial alongside some top officials of Halliburton.
2 December 2010 Last updated at 22:34 GMT
Dick Cheney faces bribery scandal charges in Nigeria
Nigeria's anti-corruption agency is to charge former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal that involves a former subsidiary of energy firm Halliburton.
The case centres on engineering firm KBR, which admitted bribing officials.
A lawyer for Mr Cheney said allegations he was involved in the scandal were "entirely baseless".
Mr Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice-president to George W Bush in 2001.
A spokesman for the anti-corruption agency, Femi Babafemi, said the charges were likely to be brought against Mr Cheney next week.
Mr Babafemi said the charges were "not unconnected to his role as the chief executive of Halliburton".
KBR last year pleaded guilty to paying $180m (£115m) in bribes to Nigerian officials prior to 2007, when it was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm agreed to pay $579m (£372m) in fines related to the case in the US.
But Nigeria, along with France and Switzerland, has conducted its own investigations into the case.
Mr Cheney's lawyer, Terence O'Donnell, said US investigators had "found no suggestion of any impropriety by Dick Cheney in his role of CEO of Halliburton".
"Any suggestion of misconduct on his part, made now, years later, is entirely baseless," Mr O'Donnell said.
Office raidThe bribes concerned the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in southern Nigeria.
KBR and Halliburton have now split, and Halliburton says it is not connected with the case against KBR.
Halliburton denies involvement in the allegations.
It has complained that a raid on its office last week by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission officials was "an affront against justice".
Ten people were detained for questioning and later released.
A prosecutor quoted by the Agence France-Presse news agency said those charged would include former and current leaders of Halliburton and officials from firms in a consortium involved in the LNG plant.
Nigeria is a member of the oil cartel Opec and is one of the world's biggest oil exporters.
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