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WASHINGTON: Federal law-enforcement agents have raided the Alaska
home of a senior Republican senator as part of a probe into
political corruption, US media reported on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
Internal Revenue Service on Monday afternoon searched the home of
Sen. Ted Stevens amid questions about his ties to an Alaska oil
services company, VECO Corp., newspapers reported.
US authorities are investigating whether Stevens
and a Republican member of the House of Representatives, Don Young,
accepted bribes or other gifts from the company. The chief executive
of VECO has already pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme targeting
state lawmakers in Alaska.
Stevens, 83, who entered the US Senate in 1968,
said in a statement his lawyers were informed about the search
beforehand and he declined to comment to avoid “any appearance
that I have attempted to influence its outcome.”
The senator’s home in the Alaskan ski resort
of Girdwood was reportedly renovated with the help of VECO’s CEO,
Bill Allen. Contractors who worked on Stevens’ home have told US
media that Allen and other company executives oversaw the work and
that the bills went to them first before being passed on to the
senator.
Stevens has said he paid all the renovation
bills with his own money.
--AFP
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