By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 27, updated -- The ostensibly full time envoy to Libya of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Abdul Ilah Al Khatib, “does have some responsibilities still in Jordan,” Ban's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told Inner City Press on March 25.
For week Inner City Press has asked the UN about Al Khatib still being paid as a Senator in Jordan and about his business interests including as a director of Jordan Ahli Bank which is a co top 20 owner of Union de Banques Arabes et Francaise with the Gaddafi controlled Libya Foreign Bank.
Now, Inner City Press has learned that after this questioning began, UN staff wrote to the UN Office of Legal Affairs seeking a ruling on Al Khatib's unprecedented double service. OLA, with Ban's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien not there, has rendered the obvious ruling, that such double service is not permissible for a staff member or UN Envoy.
Tellingly, Ban has yet to acting on the ruling by his legal department, the staff tell Inner City Press. Rather, as Haq belatedly put it on March 25, “because of the speed with which we felt the need to appoint an envoy, some of the terms of his contract are still being worked out.”
But these conflicts of interest were obvious before Ban offered Al Khatib the job, after being turned down by Lakhdar Brahimi and Kemal Dervis. Close observers say that while Al Khatib may not be able, particularly with these conflicts, to negotiate any less bloody outcome in Libya, he negotiated masterfully with Ban Ki-moon.
Once Ban publicly named Al Khatib as his envoy without getting any commitment to stop outside activities, Al Khatib has all the leverage. He is refusing to stop his activities, the sources say, and is in fact demanding that he remain based in Amman, Jordan.
Al Khatib wants UN staff assigned to him there -- already he “borrowed” a Jordanian spokesman from the Beirut-based UN Economic and Social Council for Western Asia, run by a Jordanian -- and demands to be met at airports and flown on private planes.
“Al Khatib is a great negotiator,” a well place source tells Inner City Press, “just not in or for Libya.”
With Al Khatib serving as a Senator in Jordan, protesters have recently been killed in that country. When Ban unveiled Al Khatib as his envoy at a tightly controlled press stakeout, Inner City Press asked, “What about Jordan?” The two men walked away from the microphone. Last week, Inner City Press was not allowed to ask Ban about Khatib. Watch this site.
Update: at the UN noon briefing on March 28, the day after the above was published, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky declined Inner City Press' request that he confirm or deny the OLA memo and that Khatib wants to be based in Amman and use only private jets.
Nesirky said that "some details are still being worked out" and he had "nothing to add to that." Now Ban is headed to London - no chance to ask him. Might Khatib fly there on a private jet?
