S. Korean lobbyist convicted in UN scandal returns home

INCHEON, Sept. 12 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean lobbyist, convicted in a U.N. food-for-oil scandal tied to Iraq's now-defunct Saddam Hussein regime, returned home Friday morning after being released from a U.S. prison earlier this week.

Park Dong-sun, 73, convicted in 2006 by a U.S. federal jury for lobbying U.N.
officials to help Iraq increase its oil exports amid sanctions, was greeted by
his family and others at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul.

Park expressed gratitude for the support he received from his compatriots during
his jail term in Boston.

"I have troubled many at home," said Park, whose five-year term was
reduced by a U.S. District Court early this year after he agreed to cooperate
with U.S. investigators.

Park, who was released Wednesday (U.S. time), has been classified in a U.N. probe
report as one of the central figures in the scandal involving one of the largest
U.N. humanitarian programs ever.

The program was intended to divert Iraqi oil revenues to buy food and medicine as
relief goods for the Iraqi people amid international sanctions imposed on
Hussein's regime for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Park was then accused of receiving at least US$2.5 million from the Iraqi
government for helping to expand the program by bribing top U.N. officials.