Cheryl Benard, the wife of former Afghanistan, Iraq, and UN ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, and herself president of a DC non-profit research group, has had an unspecified number of Austrian accounts frozen as a result of the probe, reports the New York Times.
According to Bloomberg, Austrian Magazine Profil cited court documents which indicated the money allegedly came from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates via oil and construction contracts, violating US laws.
Thomas Vecsey, Austrian state prosecutor, confirmed Profil’s report to the Associated Press, stating that the case became public after the documents were found in a trashcan that sits by the state prosecutors office in Vienna. Vecsey did not comment further on the allegations.
Bloomberg reported that “No charges have been brought anywhere in the world, including the United States and Austria, against Ambassador Khalilzad or Ms. Benard,” according to a statement issued on their behalf by Madison Estes, a spokeswoman for Khalilzad’s company, Gryphon Partners.
According to the AP, Khalilzad also sits on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Mideast studies center at Rand Corp., America Abroad Media, and the American universities of Iraq and Afghanistan. A frequent guest on US news shows, he also works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and writes about foreign policy issues.
