MEHDI HASHEMI RAFSAMJANI, SON OF ALI AKBAR, INVOLVED IN BRIBE CASE
OSLO 17 Sept. (IPS) Olav Fjell, the chief executive of Statoil, Norway's state-owned oil company was voted to continue as the firm’s boss after a 13 hours questioning session by the company’s directors over a 15.5 million US Dollars bribes paid to an intermediary group to secure solid access in the lucrative Iranian oil market.
What makes the case interesting is that the man suspected to have opened the doors of Statoil to Iran’s south Pars gas fields in the Persian gulf is Mr. Mehdi Hashemi, one of the five children of Iran’s number two man, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
According to Norwegian press, Statoil paid 15.5 millions to Horton Investments, a small company registered in Turks and Caicos Islands of the Caribbean and owned by a young Anglo-Iranian businessman named Abbas Yazdi, who hired Mr Hashemi, a Director of the National Iranian Oil Company for the purpose.
Statoil's board chairman, Leif Terje Loeddesoel, said on Wednesday at a news conference that the contract ''smelled bad", and he directed sharp criticism at Mr. Fjell. But he said that Mr. Fjell could continue in his job after explaining his actions in a 13-hour meeting that ended late Monday night.
Loeddesoel said the board agreed that the Iranian contract, with consultancy Horton Investment, should not have been signed, and that assessments made by Fjell prior to the deal were inadequate.
Norway's leading business daily newspaper, "Dagens Naeringsliv", quoted Mr. Fjell last week as saying he knew some of the money might go to Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Fjell said he knew "vaguely".
''The contract was with Horton Investment, a company owned by an Iranian living in London who has given us advice," Mr. Fjell said. "We have also had advice from the junior Rafsanjani, but I don't know what the financial relationship is between Horton Investment and Rafsanjani, if any."
Mr. Fjell said after the internal audition and that of the Police that the criticism he received on this matter were justified, adding that the contract was "a serious misstep".
The Norwegian police, who raided Statoil's offices last Thursday, questioned Mr. Fjell for two hours on Wednesday afternoon. The police said they were investigating whether the contract involved the ''illegal influencing of foreign government officials."
On Friday, and after that the press reported the financial scandal, Richard Hubbard, the Head of Statoil’s international exploration and production resigned abruptly and the company revoked the 11-year $15.2 million consultancy contract signed in 2002 with Horton, saying it would pay no more than the $5.2 million that it had already paid to the firm.
It is believed that it was Hubbard that introduced Statoil to Yazdi and his Horton Investments.
Spokesman Kai Nielsen said that Rafsanjani was one of the two consultants that the company had worked most with in Iran, alongside Horton Investment's owner Abbas Yazdi, who introduced Statoil to Rafsanjani.
Consultancy deals are not illegal in Norway but the police are understood to have acted on fears that some of the money paid to Horton Investment was really intended as a bribe to Iranian officials.
The contact signed with Iran thanks to the young Hashemi Rafsanjani stipulates for the Norwegian company to handle operation activities of the offshore's phases and requires it to invest about US dlrs 330 million in the projects. The buy-back contract's duration is 46 month.
Statoil will be reimbursed with the exploited condensate and other gas derivatives of the three phases or the exports revenues from the products.
Statoil's role would be to finance and oversee the building of three gas platforms in the Persian Gulf and a treatment plant for gas and light petroleum on land.
Radio Farda, the Persian service of the Prague-based Radio Free Europe-Radio
Liberty quoted some days ago Mr. Mehdi Hashemi as having denied any bribe
taking, reiterating that he nor anyone from the family hand anything to do with
the case. ENDS NORWAY IRAN OIL AND BRIBE 17903