PARIS: Three of the main former advisers of the French government went to trial on Monday accused of organizing a system of bribes in arms deals with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.
The trial is the first that arises from an expanding investigation into the so-called Karachi affair, where a bus carrying French defense engineers exploded in 2002 and killed 15 people.
Al Qaeda was initially suspected of the attack, but then focused on the arms business amid suspicions that the bombing may have been a revenge for the default of the promised bribes.
A total of six people went to trial in a criminal court in Paris on Monday on suspicion of misappropriation of part of the proceeds of arms deals. They included three former government aides who served under conservative former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.
Balladur, 90, received the order last week of being tried on claims that he used some of the bribes to finance his failed presidential offer in 1995.
The three assistants are Nicolas Bazire, the former Balladur campaign manager; Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, former advisor to his defense minister, Francois Leotard; and Thierry Gaubert, former assistant to then budget minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Also accused are Dominique Castellan, former head of the international division of the French naval defense contractor DCN (since then renamed as Naval Group), and two Lebanese intermediaries who allegedly acted as intermediaries for bribes and bribes: Ziad Takieddine and Abdul Rahman The -Assir.
El-Assir was not present at the beginning of the trial.
Chirac put an end to arms bribes Paying bribes in arms businesses was a common practice when the Balladur government won contracts to sell submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia in 1994.
However, bribes were prohibited in the agreements.
Investigators suspect that the French paid about 327 million euros ($ 359 million) in bribes in the agreements, including about 13 million euros in bribes.
After defeating Balladur for the presidency in 1995, Chirac finalized the payment of all remaining commissions in the agreements.
Balladur has denied knowledge of commissions or bribes and said he was not responsible for the "details" of the financing of his presidential campaign.
He and his former defense minister Leotard, 77, have been accused of complicity in the alleged misappropriation of part of the proceeds of arms deals.
Both will be judged by the Court of Justice of the Republic, a separate court that hears cases of alleged misconduct of ministers and prime ministers in the exercise of their functions.
Posted on Dawn, October 8, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1509625/former-french-officials-on-trial-over-kickback-deals-with-pakistan