Paris (AFP)

What were these two million euros used for?

Suspected of having received hidden remuneration from Serge Dassault in a vote buying system for municipal authorities in Corbeil-Essonnes in 2009 and 2010, two defendants defended themselves on Monday, citing a factory in Algeria and a farm in Mali.

Serge Dassault "was a man of heart, a straight man".

In the box, Younès Bounouara tells how he got involved with the billionaire RPR in 1995, he who was then "a man of the left", "a revolutionary".

Long hair, voice broken behind his mask, this 48-year-old man has been appearing since October 12 in Paris alongside five other people suspected of having participated in a system of electoral corruption fueled by the money of the aircraft manufacturer, who died in 2018.

Street educator in the city of Tarterêts from 1995 to 2001, Mr. Bounouara became a relay for Serge Dassault, for whom he campaigned "until 2008", but not for the two partial elections that followed, for which Jean-Pierre Bechter was at the top of the list, he says.

And he swears it: vote purchases, "it does not exist".

"Where are these hundreds of people who have been given money?"

he gets carried away.

"They used justice, the media to extort Serge Dassault. And today we continue to dirty him, I find it filthy."

- "I moved a mountain" -

During the investigation, several testimonies portrayed this man as being "high placed" in the "system", at the head of a group of militants charged with canvassing the voters in exchange for donations, a job or a housing.

In 2011, he received two million euros from the account of a company called Iskandia, in Lebanon, to which the billionaire had transferred a total of 18.5 million euros, officially to finance the acquisition of a Falcon 900. For the prosecution, it was a discreet circuit to remunerate the teams of the 2010 campaign.

Nothing to see, according to Younès Bounouara: most of this money was intended to build a water plant in Algeria.

He rummages through a pile of papers, slips some of them to his lawyer: certificate from the "president of the municipal assembly", from the "ministry of resources", "hydrological study" ... "The earthwork has advanced, everything has advanced, It is a mountain that I moved. It was 990 trucks that I removed there, "he assures us.

Several testimonies and recordings speak of this Lebanese payment as an envelope that the defendant had to redistribute to a group, but that he would have kept for himself.

In 2018, Mr. Bounouara was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment on appeal for an attempted assassination of Fatah Hou, another resident of Corbeil.

A case directly related to this sum.

- Desert terrain -

A few meters away, his childhood friend and co-defendant gets up.

Straight in his gray suit, hands folded at the bar, this former director of Youth and Sports at the town hall cautiously answers the president's questions.

Machiré Gassama received 400,000 euros out of the two million Lebanese paid by Mr. Bounouara but he says he did not know the source.

Mr. Bounouara "was one of the people in Corbeil who did well. He was always seen as a person with money," he said, he "was doing business".

To the investigators, he had explained to have sold to his friend a "desert" land of two hectares in Mali, bought in 2004, with cows and horses that a guard was responsible for grazing elsewhere.

The president is surprised not to find any income from this farm in her accounts.

"How do you explain that this farm does not bring you anything and that it is worth 400,000 euros?" Asks the magistrate.

- "I have no comment to make", replies the 43-year-old defendant.

Three sales certificates made in Mali were added to the file - signed by Mr. Bounouara while the latter was imprisoned, the president is surprised.

During the whole investigation, "there was zero investigation on these parts. It is strong enough to say today + we have a problem +", annoys Mr. Gassama's lawyer, Pierre de Combles de Nayves .

The trial is scheduled to continue on Wednesday.

© 2020 AFP