New York (AFP) - Former UN General Assembly president John Ashe was indicted by US authorities on charges of accepting more than a million dollars in bribes from Chinese real estate developers.
Ashe, from Antigua and Barbuda, president of the assembly from September 2013 to September 2014, is accused of accepting money to promote the construction of a UN conference center in Macau.
The 61-year-old is charged with accepting more than $1.3 million from 2011 to 2014 from a group of five people, according to the indictment filed by Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the southern district of New York.
Ashe is accused of hiding more than $1.2 million in his income tax return.
Four other people were also charged on Tuesday, including the main suspect in the corruption ring, Ng Lap Seng, a wealthy Chinese real estate developer.
Another is Francis Lorenzo, a UN deputy ambassador from the Dominican Republic, who heads South-South News, a UN-accredited media outfit that reports on development issues.
The indictment alleges that the corruption ring relied on Ashe and others to nail down the construction of a UN-sponsored conference center in Macau at the cost of billions of dollars, as well as real estate projects in Antigua and Barbuda
Ex-UN assembly chief indicted in US - Yahoo News
John William Ashe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John William Ashe
President of the United Nations General Assembly
In office
17 September 2013 – 16 September 2014
Preceded by
Vuk Jeremić
Succeeded by
Sam Kutesa
Personal details
Born
(1954-08-20) 20 August 1954 (age 61)
(St.John's, Antigua)
Nationality
Redondan
Residence
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater
University of Pennsylvania (PhD)
Saint Mary's University
Technical University of Nova Scotia
John William Ashe (born 20 August 1954) was the President of the United Nations General Assembly at its 68th session, which ran September 2013 to September 2014.[1] He was also the ambassador to the United Nations for Antigua and Barbuda. His position was last confirmed on 3 May 2004. He is also his country’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has ministerial responsibility for WTO and sustainable development matters.[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]Early life and education[edit]
Ashe was born in St. John's, Antigua. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada, and the Technical University of Nova Scotia at Halifax. He holds a Ph.D in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
[2][better source needed] [3][dead link] His parents did not complete high school. His paternal grandfather was illiterate and his mother, in turn, was a descendant of slave plantation owners in Barbados. Consequently, Ashe was the first in his family to attend university.[4][dead link]
Career
Antiguan representative at the U.NFrom 1989 to 1995, he worked for his country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations as Scientific Attaché, Counsellor and Minister Counsellor. Between 1995 and 2004, he was Antigua and Barbuda's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He served as Chairman of the thirteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, which met at United Nations Headquarters on 11–22 April 2005. He also led negotiations on budgetary and administrative matters within the conventions on biological diversity and desertification, the Basel Convention, and the Montreal Protocol, and served on the Executive Boards of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).[citation needed]
In April 2009, he was elected chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), and was responsible for overseeing negotiations leading up to and including the final phase at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.[5][dead link]
UN General Assembly President[]
Towards the end of 2011, Ashe was the consensus candidate of all 33 GRULAC members states to be the president of the 68th session of the UNGA,[6][dead link][7] thus not necessitating an election, unlike the previous year.[citation needed]
Bribery accusation[edit]
On 6 October 2015, Ashe was arrested and charged,[8] along with five others, in a criminal complaint by federal prosecutors in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, reflecting an expansion of a probe into the dealings of Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng. The complaint accuses Ashe of using "his official position to obtain for Ng potentially lucrative investments in Antigua" as part of an alleged broader scheme to funnel more than $1 million in bribes from Chinese sources to facilitate business dealings, particularly in real estate.[9]
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