Ray Younan, the absent witness in the Wollongong sex-and-bribes scandal, has something of the Arnold Schwarzenegger about him. "I'll be back!" a defiant Younan said this week from his mountain retreat in Lebanon's Valley of the Saints. Younan is the convicted conman who, with Gerald Carroll, is accused of impersonating an Independent Commission Against Corruption officer to solicit bribes of up to $500,000 from former Wollongong council officers scheduled to give evidence at an ICAC inquiry. Offended by commissioner Jerrold Cripps' decision to issue a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear before the inquiry in February, Younan said the obstacle to his return had been a dicky left knee. "Look at it!" said Younan, clutching the offending joint. "I can't hardly walk on it." He said poor circulation was not helping either, a function of his diabetes."Let me tell you, I will be appearing because I want to break the silence."But right now I can't fly that sort of distance. As soon as my doctors give me the all-clear, I'll be there."Not that Younan's ailing health is preventing him enjoying life in the Middle East.When first contacted on June 27, he said he was unavailable."I'm hunting," he said. Wild boar? Deer? Birds, as it turned out, in the United Arab Emirates. With treatment for his knee booked in Dubai for last weekend, Younan did not fly home to Lebanon until Monday evening. When we did meet him, Younan let fly at the people he said had destroyed his reputation - basically anyone connected with the Wollongong council scandal and the notorious "table of knowledge" at the North Wollongong kebab shop where developers Michael Kollaras, Glen Tabak and Frank Vellar and the council's former chief executive Rod Oxley met regularly. Younan described his old business partner Vellar - the developer whose affair with the former Wollongong town planner Beth Morgan scandalised the city - as a "rainbow", or idiot and "sex maniac".And he said the story about him impersonating an officer of the commission was preposterous. "I was caught in the net. Everyone in Wollongong knows that I am a construction worker. So how could I be impersonating a bloody ICAC investigator? It's not true, I tell you." Younan added it was the commission that should be under investigation, not him. "It's the scenes behind the scenes you have to look at," he said. Younan said the inquiry was compromised from the start, with sensitive information about what its investigators had dug up leaked to him before the scandal was made public. "A detailed report, with all the names and all the details, was hung on my door before this came out in public. How did that happen? Why would anyone do that? They were trying to turn everyone against each other."Younan claimed that, throughout the inquiry, he was kept abreast of things going on behind the scenes. "I have a source, sources, who were tipping me off about everything the whole way through. It's ICAC that has the problems, not me." The commission would not comment on Younan's allegations. However, the Opposition Leader of the House, Adrian Piccoli, said his comments should be investigated. "These claims by Mr Younan raise the question as to whether the Wollongong inquiry should be reopened," Mr Piccoli said. "If (journalists) can track him down, why can't the cops find him and get him back to Australia? If the ICAC is corrupt, if the standing royal commission is corrupt, what hope have we got in NSW?"The commission has previously outlined Younan's criminal history, including convictions for theft and money laundering. His accomplice, Carroll also has a criminal history, including numerous convictions for fraud. The pair met in 1999 while in jail. The commission alleged the two men had falsely represented that they were, or were in league with, corrupt commission officers and had successfully solicited bribes from several people under investigation. Younan said he had never received a single dollar from any witness, except the former Wollongong City Council executive Joe Scimone who told the commission in March that he paid $30,000 to Younan and Carroll after they promised they could make the investigation of him "go away"."And that did not happen," Younan said. "I didn't pay off anyone. I still have the money and the man (Scimone) is nothing but a sex addict." Younan also admitted to accepting a case of Chivas Regal from former Wollongong councillor, Frank Gigliotti."He bought me the case of whisky to help Joe out," Younan said. "A case of whisky. It's nothing!" Younan also claims that Tabak told him he was not worried about the ICAC investigation. "Glen said he could take care of himself."As for evidence in taped conversations played to the inquiry that he intended to threaten Morgan, Younan said he only showed concern for her safety.Morgan confessed to having affairs with three property developers, including Vellar and Tabak, who were seeking approval for projects in Wollongong."(I was) worried about her safety and (said) that she should take her daughter and go and stay at her family's farm. I have never threatened her." Claiming to possess documents that would prove his allegations that the commission was compromised, Younan said his main aim now would be to get well enough for the long flight back to Australia. "I am a businessman. I'm a workaholic. And I want to come back to continue my work in Australia. This is terrible, what has happened to me." Aged 55, and with his wife and four children all living in Sydney, Younan said he had a lot more to give back to the country that helped him make his fortune. "I started out (at) 15, selling reclaimed timber. By the time I was 30, I had my own timber yard and I decided to broaden out into construction. Now I have projects all over the Middle East, Africa, and there is still plenty of things I want to do back in Australia. So I will be back." Having already flown back to Australia to front the commission for two closed-door hearings this year, Younan said he was unable to make it in February at the public hearing. "I told them I couldn't appear because of my condition and I have tried to set another date but they keep ignoring me. A man wonders, why is Commissioner Cripps trying to destroy my credibility by issuing these arrest warrants ... it's because his own investigators are nothing but manipulators and under no circumstances do they want to know the truth. "All they have done is issue warrants for my arrest, saying I had failed to appear, when I had appeared. Twice. "No law enforcement is going to stop me from telling the truth about the saga of Wollongong council and what I know about the developers."