For decades he has enjoyed close personal and professional relations with French-speaking Africa's most prominent leaders, including notorious despots. Robert Bourgi, dubbed ‘Monsieur Afrique' in France, is an advisor and go-between for both the French presidency and African heads of state. He created a political storm in September after publicly accusing his one-time boss, former President Jacques Chirac, along with former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, of receiving millions of euros in secret cash payments from several African leaders. Mediapart has obtained exclusive access to a statement he gave earlier this month to magistrates in which he details the cash payment claims, including an alleged lunchtime gift to Villepin of one million euros by the president of Equatorial Guinea. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
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For more than 15 years, lawyer Robert Bourgi has served as an unofficial intermediary between successive French governments and leaders of French-speaking black African countries. Beginning with former President Jacques Chirac in 1995, he continues to serve as an advisor and go-between for the French presidency under Nicolas Sarkozy.
In September, Bourgi made headlines in France and abroad after he gave an interview to French weekly JDD in which he claimed he personally witnessed African leaders make secret cash payments of millions of euros to Chirac and his long serving political ally Dominique de Villepin. The latter, who has a bitter political rivalry with Sarkozy, rose from being Chirac's chief-of-staff, to become successively foreign and interior minister and ultimately, between 2005 and 2007, prime minister.
Bourgi, 66, made similar claims in an interview with journalist Pierre Péan, author of La République des mallettes (roughly meaning ‘The suitcase republic') also published in September. He alleged the vast sums of money were destined for illegal party funding, and were secretly carried to the French presidential and government offices in a variety of disguises, from suitcases to bongo drums. Villepin and Chirac have denied the claims and have threatened to sue Bourgi.
The lawyer, who has entertained close relations as an advisor to several of French-speaking Africa's richest despots, is himself a veteran leading figure of a system known as la Françafrique, the name given to the secret and corrupt network of relations between successive French and African governments.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Following his allegations, Bourgi was this month questioned by two Paris magistrates leading an investigation into suspected embezzlement and money laundering behind the vast assets held in France by the families of several African leaders. The families under investigation are those of presidents Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and the late Omar Bongo Ondimda of Gabon as well as his son and successor Ali Bongo. Bourgi was advisor to all four presidents. (For more on the background to the investigation click here).
Mediapart has exclusively obtained extracts of Bourgi's statement given to the magistrates, judges Roger Le Loire and René Grouman, on October 3rd, in which he details the cash handovers.
Bourgi reiterated before the magistrates his claim that Chirac and Villepin received, between 1995 and 2005, "periodic" cash deposits from African leaders which he estimated to total around 20 million euros.
"I never touched what in Africa they call ‘the paper'", Bourgi said in his statement. "It was missionaries who arrived with the diplomatic suitcase and who I led to the French president [...]".
In his statement he listed the names of five African officials who he said he accompanied when they delivered the secret cash sums to the French presidential offices, the Elysée Palace: "For Gabon, Pascaline Bongo, the principle private secretary of his father [Gabonese President Omar Bongo], Jean-Marie Adze, Gabonese ambassador to Paris, Eugène Allou, head of presidential protocol for President [Laurent] Gbagbo, president of the Ivory Coast, Salif Diallo, then Minister of Agriculture under President Comparoé of Burkina Faso, and Jean-Dominique Okemba, special advisor to [Congo-Brazzaville] President Sassou N'Guesso and his nephew."
'One-million euro introduction to Chirac'
Bourgi claimed the cash deliveries ceased in November 2005, after a souring in his relations with Villepin, then Prime Minister, and which was followed by Bourgi's move to become advisor to Villepin's conservative right rival, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy awarded Bourgi with France's highest award for civil merit, the Légion d'honneur, in 2007.
Until 2005, he said he served as what he described as an "intermediary or liaison agent" between the French presidency and African dignitaries. "Being an advisor to these heads of state, I informed President Chirac, like Villepin, about my trips to Africa and my French interlocutors, at periods decided by them, told me to pass a message to the head of state I was going to meet. These heads of state, to who I passed the message, took up contact with Monsieur Chirac or Monsieur Villepin, and that was when it a decision was taken to send an emissary."
He said the counter-party for the African leaders was help from Chirac and Villepin in "facilitating their relations with the International Monetary Fund, with the World Bank" and with "the attribution of credit, like for example the intervention of the French development Agency."
Bourgi told the magistrates he was involved in preparing "the return to grace" of Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang by organizing a lunch meeting between Obiang and Dominique de Villepin when the latter was Chirac's interior minister (2004-2005). He said that during the meeting, held at the French interior ministry and at which Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and his son Karim were also present, he witnessed the handing over to Villepin of one million euros.
"At the end of the lunch, there was a meeting held in Villepin's office and President Obiang made a sign to his aide de camp who gave him a pilot case and President Obiang placed it at the feet of Villepin, who got up, took it and put it behind his office. He sat down again and Monsieur de Villepin said to President Obiang: ‘You will be received by President Chirac' [...] At that moment, President Obiang, who speaks French, said to Monsieur de Villepin: ‘I give you one million euros to finance your political actions'".
When Bongo 'ousted French junior minister'
Enlargement : Illustration 3
Dominique de Villepîn, currently travelling abroad, did not reply to Mediapart's request, passed on via his political party République solidaire, for an interview on the issues raised in this article. "In any case, it would surprise me that he would want to reply," commented his spokeswoman, Brigitte Girardin.
Bourgi said President Sarkozy told him he wanted an end to secret funding by African leaders, citing the French President as having said: "I don't want any more of those methods".
However, he also detailed an incident in which he said Sarkozy buckled to pressure from African leaders over a row sparked by former French Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Jean-Marie Bockel. The latter gave a speech in 2008 in which he attacked the Françafrique system, infuriating some African heads of state.
Bourgi recounted: "When Monsieur Bockel gave his speech about the end of la Françafrique, that evening I received phone calls from presidents Bongo and Sassou N'Guesso who manifested to me their fury and who tasked me with making this known to the head of state [President Sarkozy] and [Sarkozy's then chief-of-staff] Monsieur [Claude] Guéant [...] I told the president that President Bongo was taken with an indescribable fury, and that he even went to the length of telling me of his wish to threaten French interests in Gabon, for example Total. That led to the sacking of Monsieur Bockel and the appointment of [Bockel's successor] Monsieur [Alain] Joyandet."
Judges Le Loire and Grouman have collected evidence that between them the Bongo, Sassou Nguesso and Obiang families possess a total of 200 bank accounts in France as well as some 30 properties, including mansions and penthouse apartments and about 20 luxury vehicles.
Bourgi, who currently serves as an advisor to the late Omar Bongo's son and successor Ali, told the magistrates that he had no knowledge of the assets. "I was as close as anyone can be to President Bongo, I was as close as anyone can be to President Sassou," he said in his statement. "I have never been linked, associated, informed of any of what today is called the biens mal acquis [ill-acquired assets]. Never did the presidents speak to me about them. I was their political advisor, which I was well before being a lawyer, but for what concerns their fortune in property, these heads of state had their French advisors, lawyers, notaries."
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