Aides of French ex-minister suspected of stealing ransom
NANCY, France, Jan 3 (AFP) - Aides of former French interior minister Charles
Pasqua could face charges of stealing from a secret ransom France allegedly
paid to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon in 1987-88, judicial sources
told AFP on Thursday.
If confirmed, the allegation that the government paid a three-million-dollar
(3.3-million-euro) ransom to the kidnappers could damage President Jacques
Chirac's chances of standing for re-election in April, according to regional
daily Est Republican, which broke the story on Thursday.
It could also harm Pasqua, who has declared he is running for president.
The source said Pasqua's former advisor, Marie-Daniele Faure, and the wife
of another aide, Christiane Marchiani, were being investigated for "money
laundering" and "trading favours".
They were detained by police on December 21 and held for questioning for
48 hours, suspected of benefitting from "funds which the French state was
supposed to hand over to the kidnappers of French hostages in Lebanon", the
Est Republican said. Both women are under police surveillance and have been
banned from leaving the Paris region. Chirac was prime minister when the
five hostages, seized during the civil war in Lebanon, were released in the
run-up to presidential elections in 1988 which he lost to Francois Mitterrand.
Pasqua was interior minister at the time and Marchiani's husband Jean-Charles
was one of his advisors. The Chirac government has always denied paying any
ransom to free them. The Est Republican said Judge Isabelle Prevost-Despre
took action against Faure and Marchiani after receiving a document from the
domestic counter-espionage service, the DST, which said the Chirac government
paid a huge ransom to the kidnappers. The DST reports to the interior ministry.
According to the document, sent to Prevost-Despre in January 2001, the ransom
money "was allegedly embezzled and turned up in a Swiss bank account belonging
to the Safa brothers, two wealthy Lebanese brothers who took part in the
Chirac government's negotiating team in 1987 and early 1988 to secure the
release of the hostages", the paper said. "According to the DST, the Safa
brothers allegedly passed the money to Mr Pasqua and Mr Marchiani in envelopes
of cash sent to members of their entourage," it continued. "Some 1.2 million
francs (165,000 dollars) were apparently withdrawn in cash during 2000,"
the paper said quoting "police sources" as saying the total ransom amounted
to three million dollars.
It said the Safas' chauffeur allegedly told investigators he had given Mrs
Marchiani and a Pasqua aide envelopes which appeared to contain money. "Jacques
Chirac is not mentioned in the (DST) document although sources close to the
affair think he could be implicated as there could not have been a potential
embezzlement of ransom money without a very high-level decision," the paper
said. It did not specify its sources.
Pasqua denied on Thursday there had been any ransom payment and demanded
legal action to punish what he said were "slanderous accusations ... and
the press which has repeated them". "No ransom was ever paid," the head of
the small right-wing RPF party told France Info radio. "That can be checked
relatively easily. If there was a ransom, it could only have come from special
funds and nowhere else and that is fairly verifiable."
Pasqua said he was "not personally acquainted" with the Safa brothers.
Marchiani's lawyer told AFP his client rejected the accusations against her
and was appealing against a court decision to restrict her movements to the
Paris region. Her husband, now a member of the European Parliament for Pasqua's
RPF, also denied there had been any ransom. "There was no ransom. the kidnappers
never asked for one and it was out of the question that we should pay one,"
he told AFP. "If there had been one, only three people would have been in
a position to approve it -- (then) President Francois Mitterrand, Prime Minister
Jacques Chirac or Finance Minister Edouard Balladur," he said. The source
told AFP Faure and Marchiani faced the charge of "trading favours" for allegedly
seeking to persuade French political and administrative figures to provide
French visas and naturalisation papers to a number of Lebanese citizens.
Beirut delays distribution of international Arab daily after "false" report
BEIRUT, Jan 3 (AFP) - Lebanon blocked the international Arabic daily Asharq
al-Awsat from sale in the country Thursday after it reported an assassination
attempt against President Emile Lahoud, which authorities flatly denied.
Ibrahim Awad, head of the Beirut office of the London-based Saudi-owned paper,
which is printed simultaneously in various Arab capitals, said the Lebanese
authorities had withheld its distribution and export licences while they
scanned the paper for any more offending items. The daily was finally allowed
to go on sale in the afternoon.
Awad said the Beirut office had nothing to do with the front page report
in the December 31 edition, which was datelined London and said Lahoud had
escaped an assassination bid in Monte Carlo on December 28.
The report was promptly denied by the presidential palace, which called it
"baseless" and "totally fabricated." The national security service said that
from now on Asharq al-Awsat would be granted a distribution and export licence
on a daily basis, effectively subjecting it to prior censorship.
The service said the paper was also being prosecuted in the press court for
"damaging" the head of state and publishing "false reports aimed at causing
instability" in the country. The moves prompted a columnist of the major
daily An Nahar, Georges Nassif, to express fears in a television broadcast
Thursday that they were a step towards muzzling the whole Lebanese press.
Beirut daily newspapers, which along with Asharq al-Awsat did not appear
Tuesday and Wednesday because of the New Year holidays, published the government
denial Thursday. But the story prompted questions from two dailies, As Safir
and Al-Liwa, as to who was behind it.
As Safir noted that the brief story had no details or source, and gave the
day of the supposed attempt on Lahoud's life as Friday, when he was still
in Beirut. But it also expressed surprise that Lahoud had accepted an invitation
to spend the New Year in the south of France from Deputy Prime Minister Issam
Fares, in contravention of protocol and without any announcement that he
would be out of the country.
Islamist's shop blown up in Palestinian refugee camp
AIN HELWEH, Lebanon, Jan 2 (AFP) - The shop of an Islamic preacher in the
southern Lebanese Palestinian refugee camp of Ain Helweh was blown up at
dawn Wednesday, an AFP correspondent reported. The blast, which was heard
in the nearby city of Sidon, completely destroyed the shop, which sold mainly
household goods, belonging to Sheikh Arfan Issa.
Issa belongs to the Association for Islamic Welfare Projects, a pro-Syrian
Lebanese group which recruits in Sunni working class districts of Beirut
and Tripoli and in the Palestinian camps. Its supporters, known as Habashists,
are fiercely opposed on religious grounds to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their
former leader, Sheikh Nizar Halabi, was murdered, allegedly by the fundamentalist
Osbat al Ansar, which is on a US list of "terrorist" organisations and has
a strong presence in Ain Helweh. |