UNSCAM UPDATE:

June 4, 2005 — WASHINGTON — The lawyer for a U.N. staffer fired for wrongdoing in the oil-for-food scandal insisted yesterday that his client acted on orders of higher-ups and is being used as a “scapegoat” to take the heat off Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other bigwigs.

Coming out swinging two days after his client was canned, the lawyer for Cypriot mid-level bureaucrat Joseph Stephanides said he plans a major battle against U.N. leadership to get reinstated and refute charges he engaged in “serious misconduct” in the award of a lucrative inspection contract to a British firm.

(Via Newsbeat 1, which notes an odd blackout on this story in Canada.)