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France: Kickback Claims Mount in 2002 Pakistan Car-Bomb Case

PARIS (WSJ) — Prosecutors investigating a 2002 bombing in Pakistan that killed 11 French citizens are taking their probe in a new direction, looking into whether the attack was retaliation for a failure to pay alleged bribes, according to a lawyer and people close to the probe.

Prosecutors are also looking into whether the arrangement involved planned kickbacks to the campaign of a French prime minister who was running for president.


The 2002 wreckage of a bus in which 14 people were killed in Pakistan,
including 11 French citizens.
(AFP/Getty)

For the past seven years, French investigators have suspected that
Islamic terrorists were behind the bombing of a bus carrying employees of French state-controlled warship maker Direction des Constructions Navales, or DCN, in Karachi.

The blast killed 14 people, including 11 French DCN employees, who were working on the construction of submarines for the Pakistan Navy. France had won a contract to build three submarines in 1994 for 5.5 billion French francs, or about $1 billion at the exchange rate of the time.

“There was a terrorist act in which French citizens were killed,” Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the families, said after a meeting with investigators. “But the motive may be that France did not pay commissions it had pledged to pay.”

After examining documents from the time, prosecutors are looking into whether — as part of the overall submarine contract — French officials allegedly agreed to pay $33 million to intermediaries who had helped France secure the contract.

Bush: ‘Radical killers’ behind Karachi bomb

Judge orders investigation into murky Franco-Pakistani corruption claims

PARIS (France24) – A French judge has ordered a preliminary investigation following allegations of an illegal arms deal between French authorities and Pakistan between 1993 and 1995 under then French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.

The investigation comes after a complaint was filed by the families of 11 French technicians and engineers killed in an attack on a bus in the southern Pakistani town of Karachi on May 8th, 2002. A suicide bomber attacked the bus carrying the French naval engineers from their Karachi hotel to the submarines on which they worked, which had been sold to Pakistan in the suspect deal.

The families put forth that they were deceived by the French state and top ranking French and Pakistani political leaders, and allege that their loved ones died as a result of a sordid political funding scandal. They also accuse Balladur and his supporters of benefitting from the deal.

Sarkozy rejects suspicion

ISLAMABAD (Dawn News) June 19, 2009 – President Nicolas Sarkozy was Mr Balladur’s campaign manager in the ballot and was also budget minister when the lucrative sales contract for the French Agosta submarines was signed. He rejected on Friday the magistrates’ suspicions. `Listen, this is ridiculous,’ Mr Sarkozy told reporters at a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels.

`This is grotesque … We have to respect the grief of the families. Who would ever believe such a tale?’ he added.

Mr Balladur also denied any knowledge of wrongdoing. Asked about the allegation by French state television, Mr Balladur said: `As far as I am aware, everything was completely above board. I have nothing more to say. If anyone has any proof, let them speak up.’

Benazir Bhutto’s husband Ali Zardari accused of involvement for alleged kickbacks in Pakistani sub deal

Between October 1993 and November 1996, the First Minister, Benazir Bhutto, has many official duties to her husband, Ali Zardari. The latter took the opportunity to require committees in all directions, in agreement with his wife. A feature that earned him the nickname “Mister 10%” and cause his downfall. Arrested December 19, 1996, he was jailed for protecting a drug trafficker cons compensation, according to a letter of attorney from Islamabad we obtained copies. It also mentions several bank accounts opened in Europe. From 1997, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB, so Court of fiscal discipline) undertook to identify assets held abroad by the couple Bhutto-Zardari. Snap cooperation with the Swiss and the British. According to the Office of the Swiss magistrate Vincent Fournier, we asked these requests Pakistani mention the contracts that may have generated kickbacks in favor of Ali Zardari, whose contract submarines of the DCN. Four years later, these efforts are successful.

One report indicates that the NAB April 12, 2001 the British administration in Islamabad transmits almost 22 000 documents on financial transactions Ali Zardari. During the 2001 financial procedures hardened against him. All documents sent by London show he has received large sums from a businessman of Lebanese origin, Abdulrahman al-Asir. This was imposed as an intermediary “by political power” in the French Agreement of September 21, 1994 for the sale of submarines, according to a former head of the DCN heard in Paris. An order from the British judge Lawrence Collins of October 6, 2006 lists the transfers sent by El-Asir to Zardari: 1.3 million dollars in two times, between 15 and August 30, 1994, a month before the signing of contract. Then 1.2 million and $ 1.8 million dollars a year later, between August 22 and September 1, 1995. Judge Collins stated that these payments correspond to operations of corruption. A few months before Zardari’s return to power, all prosecutions and seizures, Switzerland, has been abandoned, April 9, 2008.

Military aspects. But the current President of Pakistan is one of the beneficiaries of these flows validated from Paris. According to the hearings of financial DCN, Commissions take a total of 10% of the market for submarines. Divided into two channels: 4% for policies (including Ali Zardari) and 6% for the military. NAB reports collected in Karachi indicate that the Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Navy in 1994, Mansoor Ul-Haq, has benefited from corruption. Arrested in April 2001, he was forced to return nearly $ 7 million related to the contract submarines.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

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