Hussein Paid South Korean $2.5 Million, U.S. Says

South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was paid at least $2.5 million by the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to illegally lobby the United Nations and U.S. government, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Farbiarz said Tuesday in opening arguments at Park’s trial.

Park, 71, is accused of acting as an unregistered agent for Hussein’s government. Prosecutors say he lobbied for the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and to establish the oil-for-food program that sought to spend Iraqi oil revenue for purchases of food and medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department has charged Park and at least six others with illegally doing business with Iraq while U.N. sanctions were in place. Park, the first to go to trial, would face as much as five years in prison if convicted. He denies the allegations.

Michael S. Kim, Park’s lawyer, said his client was “simply a middleman, a facilitator, just like almost everyone else involved in the oil-for-food program.”