Nigeria files bribery charges against Cheney in LNG plant scandal

LAGOS - The Nigerian anti-corruption agency has reportedly filed charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney for his alleged involvement in a bribery scandal involving Halliburton, the company he once headed.

Cheney was Halliburton’s chief executive before becoming Vice-President to George W Bush in 2001.

The BBC quoted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as saying that it had filed 16 charges against Cheney and two other executives of the company.

The bribe scandal concerned the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in southern Nigeria.

KBR last year pleaded guilty to paying 180 million dollars (115 million pounds) in bribes to Nigerian officials before 2007, when it was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm agreed to pay 579 million dollars (372 million pounds) in fines related to the case in the US.

KBR and Halliburton have now split, and Halliburton had said earlier this month that it was not connected with the case against KBR. It had also denied involvement in the allegations, and added that a raid on its office last week by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission officials was “an affront against justice”, the report said.

But Nigeria, along with France and Switzerland, has conducted its own investigations into the case.

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,” he added. (ANI)