MOSCOW, Oct. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia raised questions on a report on corruption in a UN oil-for-food program for Iraqis, saying there were forged signatures on the documents cited by the report.

    "On a number of occasions, the documents shown to us were forged, in particular, they contained fake signatures of Russian officials," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday, according to Russian news agencies.

    The report, which was released Thursday after 18 months' investigation, was made by the UN-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

    It criticized more than 2,200 companies and prominent politicians in the world for colluding with Saddam's regime to extract roughly 1.8 billion US dollars in surcharges and kickbacks from the humanitarian program.

    Several Russian companies and politicians were involved in the scandal, according to the 623-page report.

    Countries that opposed sanctions, like Russia, were given priority by Iraq to trade with it, it said.

    "Russian companies received almost one-third of oil sales under the program," worth some 19 billion dollars, the report said, adding between March 2001 and December 2002, Russia companies alone paid 52 million dollars in illicit surcharges to Saddam's government.

    According to Lavrov, Russia has on many occasions inquired about the sources of the documents cited, but no explanations have been given.

    However, he did not say whether Moscow was disputing the findings of the commission, just saying it would study the report carefully, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

    The oil-for-food program was one of the world's largest humanitarian aid operations running from 1996-2003. Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell oil and most of the money from oil sales went to buying humanitarian goods for its people. Enditem