A Paris court sentenced a former interior minister to a year in prison on Tuesday and fined the son of the late President Francois Mitterrand for links to arms trafficking to Angola in a case that involved corruption at the highest levels.

 

The toughest sentences on Tuesday were handed to the two men accused of masterminding the trafficking of Soviet-made weapons to Angola during a civil war in the 1990s: Israeli billionaire Arkady Gaydamak and French businessman Pierre Falcone. Both were sentenced to six years in prison.

 

In a blow to an influential fixture in French politics, Charles Pasqua, a former interior minister, was sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended. He was convicted of influence peddling connected to the arms trafficking and fined euro100,000 ($148,690).

 

Charles Pasqua (born 18 April 1927, Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes) is a French businessman and Gaullist politician. He was Interior Minister from 1986 to 1988, under Jacques Chirac's cohabitation government, and also from 1993 to 1995, under the government of Edouard Balladur. He was first elected deputy of the UDR Gaullist party in 1968, ten years after having founded the Service d'Action Civique (SAC) organisation. Counsellor of Jacques Chirac alongside Marie-France Garaud, he was in charge of the organisation of Chirac's campaign for the 1981 presidential election, won by the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), François Mitterrand (1981-1995). As such, he is considered to be Chirac's mentor in politics. However, he broke with Chirac before the 1995 presidential election, supporting against him the candidacy of Edouard Balladur for the neo-Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic (RPR). He created in 1999 the euro-sceptic Rally for France and European Independence (RPF) party and allied himself with Philippe de Villiers's Movement for France (MPF) party for the 1999 European elections. President of the General Council of the Hauts-de-Seine from 1988 to 2004, he broke with de Villiers after his success at these elections, arriving second after the Socialist Party. President of the Union for Europe of the Nations at the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, he was re-elected Senator of the Hauts-de-Seine in 2004 on the list of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP, successor to the RPR), a function which he had already held from 1977 to 1986, then from 1988 to 1993, and finally from 1995 to 1999.

 

Pasqua has been involved in various political scandals, including the Angolagate arms trafficking scandal, involving Pierre Falcone, the Sofremi affair, the Annemasse casino affair, another affair concerning the moving of the headquarters of Alstom company, as well as the Fondation Hamon affair. He has denied receiving money from Saddam Hussein's government during the course of the Oil-for-Food Programme, following the publication of his name in 2004 on the list published by Al Mada. On 27 October 2009, Pasqua was convicted for his role in the illegal arms sales to Angola. He was fined 100,000 euros and received a two year suspended prison sentence.

 

 Political career

 

Pasqua has a degree in Law. From 1952 to 1971 he worked for Ricard, a producer of alcoholic beverages (most notably pastis), starting as a salesman.

 

In 1947 he helped create the section of the Gaullist Party RPF movement for the Alpes-Maritimes.

 

With Jacques Foccart, he helped create the Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 to counter the terrorist actions of the OAS during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). The SAC would be charged with the underground actions of the Gaullist movement and participated in the organization of the 30 May 1968 Gaullist counter-demonstration; it was officially dissolved by President Mitterrand in 1982, after the "Auriol massacre" on the night of 18 July 1981 (the five members of the Auriol commando were condemned on 1 May 1985 to sentences between 15 years of prison and life-sentences; however, the mastermind behind inspector Massié's murder was never identified).  

 

From 1968 to 1973, he was deputy to the French National Assembly for the Hauts-de-Seine département for the UDR party, of which he was a leading member from 1974 to 1976. He helped Jacques Chirac to take the lead of the party and participated in its transformation into the Rally for the Republic (RPR).

 

From 1981 to 1986 he was senator for the Hauts-de-Seine, then president of the RPR group in the Senate.

 

From 1986 to 1988 he was Interior Minister (in charge of law enforcement). The left-wing opposition claimed, in vain, his resignation after the murder of Malik Oussekine by police, during the demonstration of young against the Devaquet law. He incarnated the "hard wing" of the Neo-Gaullist party, and tried to stop the flight of the RPR voters towards the National Front.

 

After Chirac's defeat at the 1988 presidential election, he criticized the abandonment of the Gaullist doctrine and the so moderate positions of the RPR. In 1990, he allied with Philippe Séguin and disputed Chirac's leadership. In 1992, he called a vote against the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.

 

He became Interior Minister again from 1993 to 1995, and supported the candidacy of Edouard Balladur at the 1995 presidential election. He is mostly remembered for having pushed a series of anti-immigration laws (lois Pasqua), and for his declaration "we will terrorize the terrorists." He expelled CIA agents on charges of economic espionage    .

 

Pasqua distanced himself in 1998 from RPR and Jacques Chirac, arguing that Chirac was not a true heir of Gaullism. He then headed the Rally for France (RPF), a sovereignist (Eurosceptic) party, for a while in association with Philippe de Villiers. At the 1999 European Parliament election, their list got ahead of the RPR list. However, his alliance with de Villiers split.

 

In 2002 he ran for president, but dropped out after allegedly failing to obtain the 500 representatives' signatures needed to enter the race. Many suspect that he decided not to run because Jean-Marie Le Pen's presence in the election did not leave him enough political space.

 

In 2003 he was elected a deputy to the European parliament. In 2004, he was elected senator by an electoral college. Many commentators alleged that this senate position, granting parliamentary immunity, was motivated by prosecution closing on Pasqua with respect to corruption practices in the Hauts-de-Seine département.

 

Charles Pasqua did not run in the 2007 presidential election.

 Corruption scandals

 

He was named in corruption scandals concerning the public housing projects of the Hauts-de-Seine.

 

In 2004 his name appeared on the list, published by al Mada, of people who allegedly received corruption money from Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq during the course of the Oil-for-Food Program.

 

Following the publication of the Al Mada article, a US Senate report accused him, along with the British Respect MP, George Galloway, of receiving the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme. Pasqua denied the charges and pointed out that he never met Saddam Hussein, never been to Iraq and never cultivated any political ties with this country. In a lengthy written rebutal to the Senate report, Charles Pasqua pointed out further that since the oil vouchers were lifted by a legal entity incorporated in a European country, it should be relatively easy for investigators to uncover the masterminds behind the fraud instead of making accusations based on "sensational" press articles.

 

The investigations concerning the Annemasse's casino affair and the transfer of the headquarter of the transport subsidiary of GEC-Alstom to Saint-Ouen were closed in February 2007.    In the first affair, he is suspected of having signed in 1994, while Interior Minister of Balladur, the authorisation of exploitation of the casino of Annemasse to Robert Feliciaggi, in exchange of future political funding support. Robert Felliciagi was assassinated in March 2006 in Ajaccio, Corsica. He had resold the casino in 1995, making an important profit    . The second affair concerning Alstom generated in 1994 a commission of 5,2 million Francs (790,000 euros) versed to Etienne Léandri, a friend of Pasqua.  

 

The Sofremi affair is still under investigation. It concerns funds versed between 1993 to 1995 by the Sofremi, a firm charged of exportation of arms and which depended of the Ministry of Interior, to people close to Pasqua.  

 

Along with André Santini, Pasqua was also the subject of investigations concerning an affair related to the Jean Hamon donation. A wealthy Mecenate, Jean Hamon, had donated in 2000 to the department of the Hauts-de-Seine 192 works of art, estimated to be worth 192 millions euros. The Hauts-de-Seine, then led by Pasqua, was supposed to create a museum for them in Issy-les-Moulineaux, but the project was abandoned. An investigation was opened in 2003 when a judge based in Versailles demanded herself why the department had financed Jean Hamon the care and location of these works of art, for a total amount of 800,000 euros, which were stocked in a castle owned by the billionaire. Since the General Council continue to pay for a year after Nicolas Sarkozy's take-over of the department, the affair may also involve him    . Sarkozy won the 2007 presidential election as the UMP candidate.

 

 

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand (born December 19, 1946, in Boulogne-Billancourt) is the son of former French president François Mitterrand. He was an advisor to his father on African affairs from 1986 to 1992,    and earned the nickname Papamadit (which translates as "Papa-told-me") in Africa.

 Life

 

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was a press correspondent for the Agence France Presse in 1975 in Mauritania.  

 Angolagate

 

In the 1990s, he, along with Russian businessman Arcadi Gaydamak, were implicated in the Angolagate arms dealing scandal. He was indicted in 1993 by the French justice in this case, suspected of having used his influence to help the arms-dealer Pierre Falcone sell Russian weapons to José Eduardo dos Santos's government. On December 22, 2000, he was imprisoned in the Santé prison in Paris, on orders of the magistrate Philippe Courroye, on charges of "complicity of arms traffic, trafic d'influence [i.e. corruption] and trafic d'influence aggravé." He was suspected of having received important sums of money in 1993 and 1994 for his role as an intermediary in this contract, and has recognized having received US$ 1,8 million (13 million Francs) from the Brenco on a Swiss bank account — although he denied any participation to an arms deal.

 

He was freed three weeks later, on January 11, 2001, after his mother, Danielle Mitterrand, managed to pay a caution of 5 million francs (762,000 euros).       However, he was indicted again on July 4, 2001, on charges of "complicity of arms traffic" by the magistrates Philippe Courroye and Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, following a complaint filed in January 2001 by the Socialist Minister of Defence Alain Richard.  

 

He was again indicted on October 17, 2001, for corruption by investigative judge Courroye, suspected of having received US$ 300,000 from the Brenco in payment of councils to Falcone. On the eve of this new indictment, he himself had filed a complaint against Courroye accusing of him of having made a "false" document in July 2000 (because Courroye had put the date of 3 July for an ordinance drafted on 5 July) — but this manoeuver did not succeed in cancelling the procedure.  

 

According to a financial expertise transmitted in May 2004 to the judge Courroye, Pierre Falcone paid Jean-Christophe Mitterrand 2,2 million euros.

 

On January 13, 2006, the Court of Appeal of Paris confirmed the initial sentence. On October 27, 2006, the Court of Cassation rejected Mitterrand's appeal, and confirmed his a 30 months prison sentence on probation, along with a euros 600,000 fine for tax evasion (fraude fiscle) — because of 600,000 euros received from Falcone but not declared to the Fisc tax administration.