Since the Karachi affair became public, with revelations that secret cash kickbacks from an arms deal may be linked to the murders of 11 French naval engineers, the Elysée Palace has been adamant that it "in no way concerns" President Nicolas Sarkozy (left). However, that line will become harder to maintain following evidence given to an examining magistrate by Alain Juillet, former number two of the French intelligence agency, the DGSE, and revealed here by Mediapart.
Already at the centre of the Karachi affair over suspected illegal electoral funding from arms sale kickbacks, former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur is now facing more questions over large and mysterious cash sums belonging to a political organization under his control. This time it concerns a stash of almost 100,000 euros found lying in a Paris safe, officially destined to pay for weekly breakfast meetings, and which was the object of a rapidly-shelved investigation in 2007.
A former controller-general of the French armed forces told a parliamentary mission he was informed that former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur financed his presidential election campaign with illegal kick-backs on the sale of submarines to Pakistan, Mediapart can reveal. The disclosure of Jean-Louis Porchier's testimony raises further questions about the role played by Balladur's then-budget minister and campaign spokesman, Nicolas Sarkozy (left on photo).
A key witness in the investigation into suspected illegal political funding in France from bribes allocated for the sale of French submarines to Pakistan has given testimony of a blackmail attempt against senior government figures, including Nicolas Sarkozy, in the months before the 2007 presidential elections and centred on allegedly compromising information about the kickbacks. We reveal here what he told a French judge.
The families of 11 French engineers killed in a bomb blast in Pakistan in 2002 want French President Nicolas Sarkozy to be formerly questioned by an investigating magistrate about what he knows of a corruption deal linked to the attack.
The deal is suspected to have involved illegal political party funding in France, paid through secret kick-backs from the sale of submarines to Pakistan, a scam largely confirmed in November in the testimony, before a judge, of a former French defence minister.
Mediapart, which has led the revelations over what is now known as 'the Karachi affair', has produced a video report clearly explaining the backround to the scandal now engulfing the French president. Click here to watch the video and to read a selection of Mediapart reports on the story.
After months of speculation, French Prime Minister François Fillon has been re-appointed to his post, leaving outgoing environment and energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo, once tipped to replace Fillon, out of the new government and a bitterly disappointed man. Martine Orange investigates the surprising networks and friendships of Borloo, and how he once made a small fortune out of busted businesses.
The Franco-Japanese Sasakawa Foundation benefits from the support of some among France's academic and cultural elite. A recent French court ruling, however, has brought to the fore the murky history of Ryoichi Sasakawa.
In an exclusive interview with Mediapart, a former chauffeur to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her late husband André has added to allegations of secret financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential election campaign.
In March 1996, seven French Cisterian Trappist monks were kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria. Their heads were found two months later, on a nearby roadside, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain a mystery, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible. An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered by the Algerian army, and their bodies mutilated in an appalling cover-up. In this second report on the mystery, we reveal extracts from three secret French intelligence reports prepared by General Philippe Rondot, the 'super-spy' assigned to the case.
In May, 2002, eleven French naval engineers died in a bomb attack in the Pakistani port of Karachi, where they had been helping to build three submarines sold by France to Pakistan in 1994. The ongoing Paris-based judicial investigation into the murders is working on the theory that they were murdered in revenge for the non-payment by France to intermediaries of huge cash kickbacks. It has found evidence suggesting the kickbacks may have also involved illegal political funding in France. Central to this allegation are the presidential election campaign expenses of former prime minister Edouard Balladur, for whom Nicolas Sarkozy was campaign spokesman and which are due to be the subject of a second judicial investigation. Both deny any wrongdoing. However, Mediapart reveals how France's top administrative court smothered evidence suggesting the contrary.
