AliFarooq
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2008
- Messages
- 1,969
- Reaction score
- 0
PARIS: Families of French naval engineers killed in a Pakistani bomb attack said Wednesday that they had lodged a complaint accusing former prime minister Edouard Balladur’s presidential campaign of corruption.
If prosecutors agree to take up the case it could embarrass France’s current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was one of the most prominent supporters of Balladur’s failed 1995 presidential bid.
Relatives of the 11 French engineers killed in a May 2002 bomb attack on a bus in Karachi suspect that Pakistani agents carried out the attack in revenge after France cancelled their illegal commissions on an arms deal.
‘We’re just asking for the truth about the murder of our loved ones. It’s been almost eight years that we’ve been treated like fools,’ Magali Drouot, the daughter of one of the slain technicians, told AFP.
‘We’re talking about the revelation of a secret financing network that implicates several ministers at that time, including the prime minister,’ alleged the families’ lawyer, Olivier Morice.
A report commissioned by France’s state naval construction firm, leaked in June, alleged that Balladur’s political committee was to have received a cut on corrupt commissions on the sale of French submarines to Pakistan.
In 1995, newly elected president Jacques Chirac cancelled the pay-offs, which he believed had funded his rival’s campaign, angering Pakistani officers awaiting a share of the graft, the secret report said.
‘The complainants have been treated in an unacceptable manner, while the highest representatives of the French state know perfectly well that we’re looking at a significant matter of state,’ Morice said.
In 1995, Sarkozy was Balladur’s budget minister and government spokesman.
When Balladur broke a promise to support Chirac and mounted a rival presidential bid, Sarkozy became the prime minister’s campaign spokesman.
Sarkozy succeeded Chirac in 2007 and earlier this year dismissed talk of secret kickbacks to the campaign as a ‘fairy tale.’
On Monday, six of the 11 bereaved families lodged a complaint with the Paris state prosecutor alleging that Balladur’s ‘Association for Reform,’ three offshore companies and an arms exporter were guilty of corruption.
The state naval construction firm DCN, now known as DCNS, has also been accused of perverting the course of justice, Morice said.
Morice said he had asked prosecutors to investigate why the company failed to give the 2002 Nautilus Report — its internal probe into the bomb attack — to anti-terrorist magistrates until it was leaked this year.
The families believe ‘they were deceived by the French state and several top ranking French and Pakistani political leaders and that their loved ones were exposed and killed due to a sordid political funding scandal.’
It is now for French prosecutors to decide whether to take up the case.
In all, 14 people were killed on May 8, 2002, when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying French naval engineers from their Karachi hotel to where they were working on the submarines sold to Pakistan in the suspect deal.
At first, officials in both countries blamed radicals at war with the West for carrying out the attack, but French counter-terrorism officers have begun privately to accuse Pakistani spies of ordering it.
DAWN.COM | World | French victims of Pakistan blast accuse Sarkozy ally
If prosecutors agree to take up the case it could embarrass France’s current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was one of the most prominent supporters of Balladur’s failed 1995 presidential bid.
Relatives of the 11 French engineers killed in a May 2002 bomb attack on a bus in Karachi suspect that Pakistani agents carried out the attack in revenge after France cancelled their illegal commissions on an arms deal.
‘We’re just asking for the truth about the murder of our loved ones. It’s been almost eight years that we’ve been treated like fools,’ Magali Drouot, the daughter of one of the slain technicians, told AFP.
‘We’re talking about the revelation of a secret financing network that implicates several ministers at that time, including the prime minister,’ alleged the families’ lawyer, Olivier Morice.
A report commissioned by France’s state naval construction firm, leaked in June, alleged that Balladur’s political committee was to have received a cut on corrupt commissions on the sale of French submarines to Pakistan.
In 1995, newly elected president Jacques Chirac cancelled the pay-offs, which he believed had funded his rival’s campaign, angering Pakistani officers awaiting a share of the graft, the secret report said.
‘The complainants have been treated in an unacceptable manner, while the highest representatives of the French state know perfectly well that we’re looking at a significant matter of state,’ Morice said.
In 1995, Sarkozy was Balladur’s budget minister and government spokesman.
When Balladur broke a promise to support Chirac and mounted a rival presidential bid, Sarkozy became the prime minister’s campaign spokesman.
Sarkozy succeeded Chirac in 2007 and earlier this year dismissed talk of secret kickbacks to the campaign as a ‘fairy tale.’
On Monday, six of the 11 bereaved families lodged a complaint with the Paris state prosecutor alleging that Balladur’s ‘Association for Reform,’ three offshore companies and an arms exporter were guilty of corruption.
The state naval construction firm DCN, now known as DCNS, has also been accused of perverting the course of justice, Morice said.
Morice said he had asked prosecutors to investigate why the company failed to give the 2002 Nautilus Report — its internal probe into the bomb attack — to anti-terrorist magistrates until it was leaked this year.
The families believe ‘they were deceived by the French state and several top ranking French and Pakistani political leaders and that their loved ones were exposed and killed due to a sordid political funding scandal.’
It is now for French prosecutors to decide whether to take up the case.
In all, 14 people were killed on May 8, 2002, when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying French naval engineers from their Karachi hotel to where they were working on the submarines sold to Pakistan in the suspect deal.
At first, officials in both countries blamed radicals at war with the West for carrying out the attack, but French counter-terrorism officers have begun privately to accuse Pakistani spies of ordering it.
DAWN.COM | World | French victims of Pakistan blast accuse Sarkozy ally
Last edited:
