AWB kickbacks report handed in

Australian Wheat Board executives could be prosecuted

An Australian inquiry into claims that the country's monopoly wheat exporter bribed Saddam Hussein has handed its report to the government.

The Australian Wheat Board (AWB) is accused of paying $220m in kickbacks to the former Iraqi president.

The findings are not expected to be made public until it is presented to parliament early next week.

But newspapers report the government is expected to be cleared of wrongdoing.

However, the inquiry will recommend criminal charges be brought against a number of executives, the reports add.

The AWB was the largest single supplier of humanitarian goods under the UN's oil-for-food programme.

The scandal-ridden programme ran in Iraq from 1996 to 2003.

Opposition politicians in Australia have described the AWB affair as the country's "biggest-ever" corruption scandal.

Kickbacks denied

The wheat exporter is accused of paying bribes to Saddam Hussein to secure contracts worth more than $2bn under the UN's oil-for-food programme.

The commission, headed by retired judge Terence Cole, has heard more than 70 days of evidence in Sydney in considering whether the AWB broke any Australian laws in its dealings in Iraq.

Among the witnesses were Prime Minister John Howard and his foreign and trade ministers.

They have denied knowing that kickbacks were being paid to the former Iraqi leader.

Dr Andrew Vincent from Macquarie University says the investigation into the AWB has made life uncomfortable for the prime minister.

"It did seem to reveal that either the government didn't know what was happening," he said, "in which case the government was incompetent.

"Or the government did know what was happening - in which case the government was colluding with an illegal act."