A VERY SUSPISCIOUS ASSASINATION:

"The Iraqi official heading the investigation into alleged corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program was killed in a bomb attack earlier this week, officials familiar with the probe said on Saturday.

Ihsan Karim, head of the Board of Supreme Audit, died in hospital after a bomb placed under one of the cars in his convoy exploded in Baghdad on Thursday, the officials said.

Iraq's former U.S. Governor Paul Bremer gave the board independence from the executive branch of government and appointed Karim as its head in April. The board appointed international accountants Ernst and Young in May to investigate commissions Iraqi and foreign companies paid to former President Saddam Hussein and his government for securing billions of dollars worth of contracts under the 1996-2003 oil-for-food program.

The investigation undermined a separate KPMG probe initiated by the now dissolved Iraqi Governing Council, and led to tension with former financier Ahmad Chalabi, who holds documents alleging that some international suppliers paid at least 10 percent of the value of contracts to Saddam.

KPMG has stopped working on its investigation and did not issue a report due in June about the alleged fraud. This is because a bill of several hundred thousand dollars of work has not yet been paid, people familiar with the contact said.

Zaab Sethna, a spokesman for Chalabi, said the audit board was poorly equipped to handle the investigation. 'The assassination of Mr Karim is very worrying. Bremer appointed the audit board and left them on their own,' Sethna told Reuters. 'The investigation was the highest profile probe the board was handling. It is impossible to speculate who killed Mr Karim, but the oil-for-food corruption involved very powerful people inside and outside Iraq,"