Former French prime minister Édouard Balladur goes on trial Tuesday on charges that he used kickbacks from arms deals in the 1990s to fund a presidential bid, a case known as the “Karachi affair”, reports Macau Business.
Balladur, 91, joins a long list of senior French politicians pursued for alleged financial wrongdoing, including former president Nicolas Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.
The conservative ex-premier will be tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic in Paris, a tribunal dedicated to hearing cases of ministerial misconduct.
Also in the dock will be his former defence minister François Léotard, 78, though his presence at the trial’s opening is uncertain because of illness.
Balladur will appear in court Tuesday “to face his judges and answer their questions,” his lawyer Felix de Belloy said.
The two men were [placed under investigation] in 2017 with “complicity in the misuse of corporate assets” over the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia between 1993 and 1995, when Balladur was prime minister in the final years of François Mitterrand’s presidency.
The kickbacks are estimated at 13 million francs, now worth some 2.8-million-euros ($3.3 million), after accounting for inflation.
The sum is believed to have included a cash injection of about 10 million francs to Balladur’s 1995 unsuccessful presidential campaign against Chirac.
Balladur, who also has to answer to a charge that he concealed the crimes, has denied any wrongdoing, saying the 10 million francs came from the sale of T-shirts and other items at campaign rallies.
The claims came to light during an investigation into a 2002 bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, which targeted a bus transporting French engineers.
Fifteen people were killed, including 11 engineers working on the submarine contract.
The Al-Qaeda terror network was initially suspected of the attack.
But the focus later shifted to the arms deal as investigators considered whether the bombing may have been revenge for Chirac’s decision to halt the commission payments for the arms deals shortly after he beat Balladur in the presidential vote.
Léotard is accused of having created an “opaque network” of intermediaries for the contracts signed with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The ex-premier also stands charged with instructing the budget ministry — led at the time by Sarkozy — to approve state guarantees for “deficient or underfunded” contracts, because of the alleged kickbacks.