French prosecutors have called for the former head of the country’s internal intelligence agency to stand trial on charges of influence peddling and forgery, reports The Guardian.
Bernard Squarcini, who was head of the DCRI agency – the French equivalent of MI5 – until 2012, is also accused of complicity in breaches of professional and judicial secrecy.
The case centres on accusations that Squarcini used French intelligence and police services to help private interests, among them the world’s largest luxury group LVMH, which hired him in 2013.
The so-called “Squarcini Affair” has dragged on for more than a decade. French media reported that prosecutors had recommended judges order a trial for the intelligence chief, nicknamed Le Squale (the shark), and 10 others, including a former appeal court judge, on 23 December.
The vast inquiry followed Squarcini’s move to the private sector after the then Socialist president François Hollande removed him as the country’s intelligence chief in 2012 for being too close to his predecessor, the right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.
Read Mediapart's background to the case here.