Leading members of the United Nations Security Council yesterday demanded to know why the UN secretariat had offered to use Iraqi oil revenues to pay the legal fees of Benon Sevan, the disgraced former head of Iraq's oil-for-food programme.

The UN said on Tuesday that it had promised to pay Mr Sevan reasonable legal fees to ensure his co-operation with the Volcker Commission (IIC), which is investigating allegations of fraud and mismanagement in the multibillion dollar programme. It had proposed to cover the costs from a special account funded by Iraqi oil revenues to administer the oil-for-food programme.