'Angolagate' - 42 on trial

2008-10-06 00:14

Jean-Louis Pany

Paris - Forty-two people - including the son of late French president Francois Mitterrand - go on trial on Monday over a vast "arms-to-Angola" scandal.

Dubbed "Angolagate" by the French press, the long-running affair has cast a shadow over a raft of senior government officials, including many who served during Mitterrand's two-term Socialist presidency from 1981 to 1995.

It revolves around the trafficking of $790m in arms to the southern African country from 1993 to 1998, at the height of a bloody civil war that left half a million dead.

Two businessman - Frenchman Pierre Falcone, 54, and the Russian-born Israeli billionaire Arcady Gaydamak, 56 - are at the heart of the case, accused of acting as go-betweens for illegal arms deliveries from eastern Europe.

Both face 10 years in jail for influence-peddling and illegal arms sales.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 61, who was an adviser on African affairs at the Elysee presidential palace from 1986 to 1992, is accused of "complicity in illegal trade and embezzlement" and taking bribes worth $2.6m.

The charges against Mitterrand, who risks five years in jail, state that he had a "determining role" in putting the Angolan regime in touch with Falcone.

France refused to sell tanks

Judges believe Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos turned to Falcone, the boss of weapons firm Brenco International, and his associate Gaydamak, in 1992 after France refused to sell him a shipment of tanks to shore up his forces in the war against Unita rebels.

Over the next half-decade, 420 tanks, 150 000 shells, 170 000 landmines, 12 helicopters and six warships were trafficked into the war-wracked country.

Angolan payment was channelled via firms in Paris, Geneva or Tel Aviv, to shell companies in Jersey, the Virgin Islands or Monaco, with suitcases of cash used to pay off middlemen, prosecutors suspect.

Although no Angolans are charged in the French case, prosecutors allege that 30 officials including Dos Santos also received tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks.

- AFP