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 "Some 1.2 million francs (165,000 dollars) were apparently withdrawn in cash during 2000," the paper said quoting "police sources" as saying the total ransom amounted to three million dollars.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.