Ex-UN ‘head’ held for bribery

NEW YORK: A former president of the UN General Assembly, John Ashe, was arrested late on Tuesday and charged with taking $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen in a corruption scandal that stunned the world body.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “shocked and deeply troubled” by the charges, which were unprecedented in the UN’s 70-year history.
Ashe, who served as assembly president for a year from September 2013, allegedly took bribes in exchange for backing a proposed UN conference center in Macau promoted by wealthy Chinese developer Ng Lap Seng.
“Among other things, Ashe accepted over $500,000” from Ng who was “seeking to build a multi-billion dollar, UN-sponsored conference center in Macau,” the complaint said.
New York police arrested the 61-year-old former UN ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda at his home in Dobbs Ferry outside New York and three others were detained in New York early on Tuesday.
US Attorney Preet Bharara said Ashe was using the United Nations as a “platform for profit”, pushing for the Macau project and advancing Chinese interests in his Caribbean home country.
In exchange for payments, Ashe submitted a written request to Ban “which claimed that there was a purported need to build the UN Macau Conference Centre,” the complaint said.
Ng and others used the March 2012 letter from Ashe to promote the conference centre which was to house a “Global Business Incubator” to foster South-South cooperation in the private sector.