By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 27 -- After Inner City Press yesterday morning exclusively published, and at noon asked, about 14 kilograms of cocaine brought into the UN's mail room, 24 hours later Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky argued that the bags were "never intended for the UN."
UN Security sources tell Inner City Press there is no way to know that. The courier, DHL, obviously has a policy or practice of bringing items with the UN logo on them into the UN, as happened here.
Why, these sources asked Inner City Press which in turn today asked Nesirky, were the bags spirited out of the UN before there was any chance to see who might come to try to collect them?
Nesirky argued that the Thursday evening press encounter by Gregory Starr of the UN Department of Safety and Security had answered all questions. Inner City Press asked Nesirky on Friday to confirm that under Starr, DSS disbanded its Special Investigations Unit.
When Inner City Press broke this story, it asked "what is ID/OIOS" -- the Investigations division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, from which Ban Ki-moon removed his critic Inga Britt Ahlenius - "doing about drug trafficking in the UN?"
The OIOS investigative division ostensibly took over for the DSS Special Investigations Unit which Starr disbanded. Security source tell Inner City Press about a "covered up" probe by this DSS unit of drug trafficking using UN bags in Haiti, where the UN has a peacekeeping mission.
Inner City Press on Friday also asked Nesirky to confirm previous arrest(s) of UN personnel specifically in the UN mail room for being involved in drug smuggling. Nesirky said he would check. Video here, from Minute 8:46.
Well, here's one, from a publicly available indictment in US Federal court: 29-year UN employee Osman Osman was charged in 2006 with facilitating the import of 25 tons of illegal drugs using his position in the UN mail room.
Gregg Starr shows UN bags: DSS Special Investigations Unit not shown (c) MRLee
Given this history, current UN Security sources and now Inner City Press ask, why were the bags spirited out of the UN before there was any chance to see who might come to try to collect them? Who might have been protected? Watch this site.
