Third Employee Says He Was Fired in UNDP Scandal

UNITED NATIONS — A third employee of the U.N. Development Program is saying he was fired after complaining about rules violations by his superiors.

In a letter to the Danish ambassador to the United Nations — and also sent to Secretary-General Ban and other top U.N. officials — Imran Mumtaz wrote that he decided to complain about his dismissal after following the case of the former office manager of the UNDP North Korea office, Artjon Shkurtaj.

A West African UNDP employee, Mathieu Credo Koumoin, lodged a similar complaint last week.

In the letter to Ambassador Carsten Staur, who leads the agency's board of directors, Mr. Mumtaz said he complained about one of his superiors, Hassan Alsancak, in the UNDP's office in Ankara, Turkey. He described Mr. Alsancak as a former bodyguard of the agency's administrator, Kemal Dervis.

"I was fired because the bodyguard and friend of Kemal Dervis was unhappy with us (myself and other two staff) reporting the abuse of power," Mr. Mumtaz told The New York Sun in an email yesterday.

Earlier this year, Mr. Shkurtaj said the UNDP dismissed him after he exposed irregularities in the agency's Pyongyang office. A U.N. ethics office found "prima facie" evidence that the UNDP had retaliated against him, but said it would launch its own "independent" investigation, citing jurisdiction issues. Mr. Ban said yesterday that he hoped the probe would "clear all the allegations or suspicions or mistrust."