The former chief executive of the Octel chemical works near Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, could face extradition after an agent admitted offering and paying million-dollar bribes to officials to sell toxic fuel additives to Iraq.

According to the Guardian, Paul Jennings, who stepped down from his position in March last year, and his predecessor, Dennis Kerrison, exported tonnes of toxic petrol additive tetra-ethyl lead (TEL) to Iraq.

Both are said to be identified in court statements by the US Department of Justice, which is conducting a growing corruption investigation, but are refusing to comment on the matter while under continued investigation.

Octel, now known as Innospec, has admitted that officials in Iraq were bribed with millions of dollars to carry on using TEL in a conscious bid to maximise profits. After two years of transatlantic negotiations, it has pleaded guilty to and agreed to pay fines totalling $40m (£26.7m).

TEL, an additive banned in the UK, has been linked with deaths and causing brain damage to children and it is understood Iraq is the only country that still adds lead to petrol.

On June 25th 2010 Innospec Inc.’s agent Ousama M. Naaman pleaded guilty to offering and paying 10 per cent kickbacks to the then Iraqi government in exchange for five contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Program (OFFP).

He also admitted that from 2004 to 2008, he paid and promised to pay more than $3 million in bribes, in the form of cash, as well as travel, gifts and entertainment, to officials of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the Trade Bank of Iraq to secure sales of TEL in Iraq. Naaman faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

The Innospec matter has been investigated in close cooperation with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office.