A former head of French Intelligence charged with complicity in attempted extortion

A former director of the DGSE finds himself indicted on charges of extortion against a contractor deemed indelicate.

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3 mins

A businessman accuses Bernard Bajolet, former director of the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), of having used coercion to demand money from him in 2016. 

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In March 2016, Alain Duménil, a 73-year-old Franco-Swiss businessman who appears in a plethora of legal cases and commercial disputes relating to the management of his businesses in France and Switzerland, is preparing to embark on a flight leaving for Geneva at the Parisian airport of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, according to the story of the same source.

At the Air France counter, it is checked by two border police officers.

After asking him for his passport, they claim a more thorough check and invite him to follow him to a police station.

Two DGSE agents, in civilian clothes, enter the room, according to the same source.

Presenting themselves as "

", they tell him that he must reimburse 15 million euros to France.

To do this, he must tell his counsel to get in touch with a lawyer to set the terms that will allow him to pay off his debt.

Pressures

To support their request, they show him photos of him and his family, taken in England and Switzerland.

According to Alain Duménil, they would have made threats.

The interview lasts a few minutes, the businessman gets carried away and proclaims his intention to file a complaint.

Agents disappear.

In October 2022, Bernard Bajolet is heard and indicted.

He explains to the investigating judges that he validated the principle of an interview at the airport but did not go into the details of its implementation.

The names of the services and people in charge of this file, as well as those of the agents who conducted the interview will never be disclosed, protected by defense secrecy.

For Bernard Bajolet, the objective was a short and unconstrained contact with a man considered by the institution to be elusive and with whom many previous contact attempts had failed. 

The former director general of external security is therefore indicted for complicity in attempted extortion against him, reports

.

The aim of French justice is to determine the legal framework of the control, the degree of constraint exerted by the various agents and the possible threats.

He is also indicted for arbitrary interference with individual freedom by a person holding public authority.

The hidden money of services

Since the end of the First World War, the DGSE has managed “private assets” entrusted by the State.

At the end of the 1990s, the DGSE had made unsuccessful investments in a company.

In the early 2000s, in an exchange of securities, Alain Duménil became the majority shareholder in this company and sold shares in his holding company to the DGSE.

He then transferred all of the shares in the holding company held by the DGSE to three other companies that he also owned.

The holding is put into compulsory liquidation.

In the resulting legal proceedings, the businessman was charged in November 2016 with bankruptcy.

The DGSE estimates that Alain Duménil owes them 15 million euros, including three in interest.

The ex-banker administers companies in various fields: luxury, real estate, aeronautics industry, press... He was notably convicted of complicity in bankruptcy in 2012 by the Grenoble Court of Appeal.

The European Court of Human Rights found that in this case, the Court of Appeal violated his right to a fair trial.

Asked, the DGSE refused to respond to AFP, referring to one of its previous statements where it denied "

" on Alain Duménil, "

". 

(

AFP)

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