Kojo Annan, the son of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said he had no involvement in the troubled Iraqi oil-for-food program and denounced a Republican "witchhunt" against his father, CNN reported Tuesday.

Kojo Annan, in his first public comment on the subject, told CNN in a written statement: "I have never participated directly or indirectly in any business related to the United Nations."

"I feel the whole issue has been a witchhunt from day one as part of a broader Republican political agenda," he said.

Kojo Annan, 31, who lives in Lagos, Nigeria, once worked for Cotecna, a Switzerland-based company that was hired by the United Nations in 1998 to verify paperwork related to the now defunct oil-for-food program. The program was being investigated for alleged corruption.

Critics have suggested that Cotecna might have been favored in its bid because of the Annan family connection, a charge which both Kojo and the firm have denied.

A US Senate committee has charged that Saddam Hussein was able to siphon off 6.7 billion US dollars in oil revenues from the program and made an additional 13.7 billion dollars smuggling oil in contravention of international sanctions.

Kojo Annan said in the statement that he has already spent "countless hours" being questioned on two occasions by investigators for the UN's independent inquiry.

A group of Republican legislators has urged Kofi Annan to resign, but the Bush administration has expressed support for him.

Kojo Annan said he feels sorry for the distress he's brought on his father and the rest of his family, but he feels confident that in the end he will be found "innocent of any wrongdoing."

Kofi Annan himself has said he had no involvement in the granting of UN contracts, but was "disappointed and surprised" to learn that Cotecna continued to pay his son after he left the firm and "the perception of conflict of interest" that created.