Paris (AFP)
The former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur will be tried from January 18 to February 19 by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) in the financial aspect of the Karachi affair, for suspicions of hidden financing of his 1995 presidential campaign, AFP learned Thursday from a judicial source.
Mr. Balladur, 91, is dismissed for "complicity in the abuse of corporate assets" and "concealment" of these crimes. His former Minister of Defense François Léotard will appear at his side for "complicity" before the CJR, a controversial jurisdiction and the only one empowered to judge offenses committed by members of the government in the exercise of their functions.
The former Prime Minister and ex-presidential candidate in 1995 had contested his referral to the CJR to the end, but the Court of Cassation had rejected his last appeals in March, paving the way for this trial.
In the financial but non-governmental aspect of the sprawling Karachi affair, the Paris Criminal Court severely punished on June 15 the former relatives of Edouard Balladur, for their role in a system of hidden commissions on armament contracts with the 'Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
For the correctional judges, some of the relatives of the former Prime Minister could not ignore the "dubious origin" of the funds paid into the account of the 1995 presidential campaign and resulting from illegal retrocommissions.
The criminal court estimated that between six and ten million francs landed illegally on the campaign account of Mr. Balladur.
The Karachi affair owes its name to the attack of May 8, 2002 which left fifteen dead, including eleven French employees of the Directorate of Shipyards (ex-DCN) who were working on the construction of one of the Agosta submarines sold. in Pakistan.
Since 2009, the anti-terrorism investigation has explored the - unconfirmed - thesis of reprisals for the decision of Jacques Chirac, fallen by Édouard Balladur in the 1995 presidential election, to stop the payment of commissions in these contracts after his election.
Heard five times by the investigating judges, Mr. Balladur assured that he was "informed of nothing about the existence of commissions, retrocommissions".
Before Edouard Balladur and François Léotard, eight people - including Jean-Jacques Urvoas, Christine Lagarde, Charles Pasqua or even Ségolène Royal - were tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic, a half-political, half-judicial jurisdiction criticized for slowness of its procedures and the leniency of its judgments, and whose existence is suspended.
Since 1999, the CJR has acquitted three former ministers, sentenced three others to suspended sentences and found two guilty while exempting them from punishment.
© 2020 AFP