JIBRIL AMINU, FOUR MINISTERS NAMED IN SIEMENS BRIBE SCANDAL

More revelation emerged on how four former Communications Ministers acting on the knowledge of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, solicited and received millions of dollar bribe from officials of SIEMENS AG, a German based world Telecommunication Company.

Three Former Communication Ministers, Bello Mohammed, Cornelius Adebayo and Haruna Elewi received the highest of € 650.000.00, €570.000.00 and € 450.000.00 respectively. A serving Senator, Jubril Aminu (Adamawa) received € 185,000.00. A Secrertary in at the Mininstry of Communications, one David Osakwe Oyegun collected €70,000.00, R. Olusanjo of NITEL tenders board collected €320.000.00, Samson Olabiyi, Legal Advisor, NITEL collected €100.000.00.

Others include Buba Bajonga, former Managing Director of NITEL who was alleged to have collected €60.000.00, Allahbamulafia, a Director in NITEL, €120.000.00, Chuka Nwizu, Head of Immigration, €20, 000.00, Aliyu Datti, Legal Adviser €15,000.00. Over €450 Million went to unnamed officials of government.

Officials from Libya, and Russia also benefited from the bribe money which was mean to facilitate lucrative contracts according to court documents.

According to court documents, Cornelius Adebayo, former C

 The document, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, offers the most detailed picture to date of the scandal that has ensnared one of the world's biggest conglomerates in investigations across the globe.

 The Oct. 4 ruling by a Munich court names four former Nigerian telecommunications ministers as well as other officials in Nigeria, Libya and Russia as recipients of 77 bribes totaling about €12 million, or about $17.5 million. Siemens accepted responsibility for the misconduct and agreed to pay a €201 million fine decreed by the court, but it has declined to identify those named as bribe givers and takers in the ruling's text, which wasn't disclosed.

 The court focused on bribes between 2001 and 2004 connected to Reinhard Siekaczek, a former manager in a telecommunications-equipment unit who spent 38 years at Siemens. Mr. Siekaczek has been indicted on embezzlement charges in the Munich court, and his lawyer said he is cooperating with prosecutors in their investigation of bribes at Siemens. He is expected to face trial early next year.

 Mr. Siekaczek has told prosecutors that he knows about bribes beyond the three countries that were made with the knowledge of senior managers, according to separate court records. That testimony could serve as a springboard for other criminal investigations and additional fines in countries where Siemens is active, including the U.S.

 Siemens, Europe's largest engineering company with revenue last year of €72 billion, manufactures everything from light bulbs to high-speed trains. When they carried out a dramatic raid on Siemens headquarters a year ago, German police focused on just €20 million in alleged fraud. The investigation quickly mushroomed into one of the continent's biggest bribery cases, triggering high-level arrests including Mr. Siekaczek and the resignations of the chairman and chief executive earlier this year.

 Siemens is still being investigated on several continents. The company said last week it has identified €1.3 billion in suspicious transactions world-wide between 2000 and 2006.

 The Munich court ruling, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, lists bribes from €2,000 to €2.25 million steered by Mr. Siekaczek and colleagues to dozens of government officials in the three countries. It says most of the money, about €10 million, went to Nigerians, including an immigration official, a senator and four former telecommunications ministers: Bello Mohammed, Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Cornelius Adebayo and Alhaji Elewi.

 An official at Nigeria's Information and Communications Ministry said the government needed to look into the allegations before commenting. The former ministers couldn't be located for comment.

 Siemens has sold telecommunications equipment in Nigeria, but the ruling doesn't specify what contracts Siemens was seeking when its employees paid bribes. It also doesn't say what, if anything, the recipients of Siemens's money did in exchange for it.

 The three-judge panel said its ruling was based on information from interviews with Siemens employees and extensive files of documents. Many of those documents were seized in the Nov. 15, 2006, police raids of Siemens offices in Germany.

 Anton Winkler, a spokesman for the prosecutors in Munich, said prosecutors haven't interviewed those who were named in the court ruling as bribe takers. The prosecutors aren't pursuing action against these people because German courts usually don't have jurisdiction if a non-German receives a bribe outside of Germany.

 Mr. Winkler declined to discuss the precise nature of the evidence, but said, "The names and other information in the decision were carefully checked for accuracy."

 In Russia, according to the court findings, 38 bribes totaling about €2 million were funneled to senior
 managers at nearly two dozen regional state-controlled phone companies stretching from Petrozavodsk in the west to  Vladivostok in the east. The ruling also lists six bribes totaling about €300,000 to two officials at Libya's state-run General Post and Telecommunications Co. The two officials named are Ramadan Negita, a general manager at the company, and E. Swei Emhemmed Jamel, a project manager.

 The Libyan company didn't respond to written questions, and the two managers couldn't be located. A spokesman for OAO Svyazinvest, the state-controlled parent company of  Russia's regional telecommunications companies, said it won't comment on a ruling it hasn't seen.

 In some cases, according to the Munich court, bribes were funneled by Mr. Siekaczek to government officials through outside consulting firms. In other cases, Mr. Siekaczek directed the money from company headquarters to other Siemens officials who acted as intermediaries. Sometimes bribes were deposited in recipients' bank accounts. At other times, the recipients were handed cash.

 According to Siemens, many of the €1.3 billion in dubious transactions it has identified lie outside the telecom unit where Mr. Siekaczek was employed. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the U.S. law firm hired by Siemens last December to investigate wrongdoing at the company, flagged 65 countries for scrutiny in an internal document recently reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 The 57-year-old Mr. Siekaczek oversaw sales at a branch of Siemens's telecom unit earlier this decade, eventually helping oversee 15,000 employees and €4 billion in annual sales. As a Munich-based director, he reported to the unit's management board, which in turn reported to Siemens's central executive board. Mr. Siekaczek left his full-time position at Siemens in November 2004, but was retained by the company for several more months as a paid consultant, according to court records. Siemens declined to say why Mr. Siekaczek left.

 According to the Munich court ruling, Eduard Seidel, who headed Siemens's operations in Nigeria earlier this decade, helped deliver many of the bribes to final recipients. The court also said Klaus-Peter Gilbert, Mr. Seidel's successor, helped deliver bribes in Libya. Mr. Gilbert and Reinhart Stiglmayr, Siemens's finance chief in Nigeria, were arrested in May by German authorities and then released.

 A Siemens spokesman in Munich said Mr. Seidel was no longer with the company. He said Mr. Gilbert is no longer the chief executive in Nigeria, but declined to say whether he remained with the company. Mr. Stiglmayr, listed as one of 11 witnesses in the Munich ruling, has retained his position.

 Siemens in Germany and Nigeria declined to make any of the individuals available for comment and they couldn't be located independently.

 Mr. Siekaczek was particularly active in 2003, according to the Munich court ruling. In February, with the help of Mr. Gilbert, an executive in Munich at the time, he steered €153,370 to Mr. Negita, the senior official at  Libya's GPTC, it says. Smaller follow-up payments were made to the official in August and October, according to the court findings.

 In August of the same year, according to the court, Mr. Siekaczek and Mr. Seidel funneled a €150,000 bribe to Mr. Mohammed, following a €550,000 payment the year before, when he was still the Nigerian telecommunications minister.

 The Munich court estimated that the roughly €12 million in bribes in Nigeria, Russia and Libya produced at least €200 million in "unlawful economic advantages"  for Siemens. German law generally doesn't permit filing criminal charges against a company. Siemens was named by the court as an accessory to Mr. Siekaczek's alleged crimes. Under German law, prosecutors can fine a company €1  million and force it to surrender profits derived from illegal activity. Siemens said it won't appeal the fines.

 Siemens faces the threat of further fines by authorities and bans on public-sector contracts in several other countries where it already is being investigated, including the U.S.

 In police interrogations late last year, Mr. Siekaczek told  Munich prosecutors about bribery involving Siemens managers in more than a dozen countries, including Brazil, Cameroon,  Egypt, Greece, Poland and Spain, according to separate court records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 Mr. Siekaczek's lawyer, Wolfgang Kreuzer, says his client will be an important witness in any future German trials of Siemens-linked suspects once Mr. Siekaczek's own case is closed.

 Mr. Kreuzer noted that his client has been charged with embezzlement for the benefit of Siemens, not with bribery. Mr. Kreuzer said he won't challenge the facts behind the embezzlement charges.

 Mr. Siekaczek already is playing an important role in criminal investigations outside Germany, according to people familiar with the matter. Prosecutors in Switzerland and Italy, probing suspicious payments tied to Siemens, have spoken with Mr. Siekaczek. A Greek investigation into possible criminal behavior by a Siemens executive in that country also is linked to Mr. Siekaczek.

 As part of last month's settlement with Siemens, Munich prosecutors have ruled out further fines against the company for any illegal activity tied to its telecom unit, which was dismantled last year. They continue to pursue cases against individuals and could penalize Siemens for wrongdoing at any of the company's existing business units.

 Siemens disclosed last week that company officials are being investigated in China for alleged corruption at several business units, including those specializing in medical equipment, factory automation and information technology. It also cited corruption probes by local authorities in Hungary, Indonesia, Norway and Italy.

 Investors largely have taken the bribery probes in stride. Since the German investigation spilled into the open a year ago, Siemens's share price has risen 32% as profits climb on the heels of a restructuring drive.

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