'Angolagate' - 42 to stand trial
2007-04-06 23:13
Paris - A French judge has ordered 42
people to stand trial over a $790m scandal involving arms
sales to Angola, including a son of late French President
Francois Mitterrand, judicial officials said on Friday.
The trial will begin at the end of 2007 or in early 2008.
Arms traders Pierre Falcone, a Frenchman, and Israeli
national Arkady Gaydamak, are accused of paying a network of
political contacts to favour their activities in the African
country.
Both men are abroad and will be tried in absentia. The pair
have argued that their business dealings were legal.
Falcone is accused of selling Russian arms to the war-torn
African country in 1993 and 1994 in an affair dubbed
"Angolagate" that cast a shadow over Mitterrand's two-term
presidency from 1981 to 1995.
'Complicity'
Falcone's contacts, including Mitterrand's son
Jean-Christophe, the Socialist president's adviser Jacques
Attali and former conservative interior minister Charles Pasqua,
are suspected of accepting large sums to facilitate the deals.
The sums range from $2.6m in Mitterrand's case to
$160 000 for Attali.
Mitterrand, will be tried for "complicity in illegal arms
trading".
Pasqua and Attali will be tried for receiving illegal
bonuses from the arms dealers.
The case is one of a series of murky scandals from the
Mitterrand era and involves political figures on both the left
and right, as well as a colourful associated cast including the
thriller writer Paul-Loup Sulitzer.
Falcone and Gaydamak bought tanks, helicopters, artillery
pieces, mines, flame-throwers and other weapons in eastern
Europe and sold them to Angola through a Paris-based company
called Brenco and its Slovak subsidiary.
Prosecutors say the deals required official authorisation, a
charge rejected by the defence.
The weapons were used by Angolan President Eduardo Dos
Santos to fight rebel Unita forces under Jonas Savimbi.