Nous reproduisons ci-dessous un article paru sur le Imagine the scandal that would ensue in some countries if prosecutors announced that they were pursuing the following trail: the head of state is suspected of possible involvement in a corrupt arms deal that lead to the death of 11 of his citizens in a bomb attack attributed to Al Qaida.
That may sound like a movie plot or something from the third world but it's happening in France. It's the outline of a case that has begun to lap around President Sarkozy. With the exception of a couple of leftwing publications, the media are treading very carefully over this so-called Karachi affair. Sarkozy has dismissed it as pure fantasy. But he may not be able to escape further explanation, since vengeance is in the air -- in the person of his sworn enemy Dominique de Villepin, the former Prime Minister and right-hand-man of President Jacques Chirac.
The story involves a jump back to the 1990s but it's worth the effort. The trigger event is a 2002 suicide bomb attack on a bus full of French shipyard workers in Karachi. Fourteen people were killed, 11 of them French citizens working on submarines which France had sold to the Pakistani navy [bomb scene in top picture]. Two alleged Al Qaida operatives were sentenced to death in Pakistan for the attacks, but their convictions were recently quashed on appeal.
The French side of the investigation plugged away slowly until two new juges d'instruction were appointed a few months ago. Two weeks ago, they told survivors of the attack and families of the dead that the Al Qaida trail was now excluded. They said they had strong reason to believe that the bombing was staged by senior figures in the Pakistani military as retaliation against the French government.
Why ? Paris had incurred the wrath of the unnamed Pakistanis because in 1995, President Chirac had cut off payment of millions of euros of "commissions" -- bribes or fees -- to middle-men in the 825 million euro submarine contract. Chirac may have taken his decision because part of the illicit commissions were being kicked back to France to finance Edouard Balladur, the Prime Minister of the time, said the judges. Balladur was Chirac's party subordinate who turned coat and ran against his boss for the presidency in 1995.
And who was the head of Balladur's campaign that year? Nicolas Sarkozy. He was also, as Budget Minister of the time, the man who signed the paperwork to have the submarine commissions sent to a Luxembourg-based shell company. [Picture left: Balladur with his former chief lieutenant, N Sarkozy]
That's strong stuff. There are denials all round. But the judges in the Karachi case are not just theorizing. Documents support their suspicion. They discovered that in 2002 an internal investigation by the DCN, the state ship-building firm, concluded flatly that the bus attack was retaliation over non-payment of the full submarine commissions. The 2002 report, written by a former agent of the DGSE, the French Intelligence Service, said suitcases of cash from the commission were being delivered to Balladur's campaign in Paris, according to le Nouvel Observateur magazine
In 2007, Jean-Claude Marin, the Paris Prosecutor, wrote a memorandum mentioning a suspected link between the Karachi attack and the financing of the Balladur campaign, according to documents obtained last week by Reuters news agency.
Last week, Charles Millon, who was Chirac's defence minister after he won the presidency in 1995, confirmed that the incoming administration had halted payment of the submarine commissions because part of them were thought to be paid back into France. De Villepin, who was serving as Chirac's chief of staff in 1995, said on Friday that Chirac had "refused payment of all commissions which could have been used to send kickbacks to France". He said that he had not been alerted "specifically" to the submarine contract.
Villepin must be relishing his chance to get back at Sarkozy after the humiliation that the President has inflicted on his frère-ennemi by having him pursued over the so-called Clearstream affair. In the Clearstream case, Villepin is to stand trial in a few months on charges of trying to smear Sarkozy with claims four years ago that Sarkozy had stashed a large sum of money in a secret bank account in.... Luxembourg.
Balladur, who earned Chirac's enmity for betraying him by running against him in 1994, said yesterday that everything about the submarine deal and his election finances were above board and he is happy to answer the judges' questions. But he added that he did not follow the detail of the submarine contract. It's worth noting that the 50 million or so euros of foreign commissions on the submarine deal were legal -- and tax-deductible by the shipbuilders -- in France at the time. Such payments became illegal only after France signed up to an OECD anti-corruption pact in 2000. It was always illegal for French nationals to receive kickbacks from such commissions.
This case is unlikely to fade because the survivors and families, who are mainly from the Normandy port of Cherbourg, have banded together and are demanding a full investigation. And parliament is getting involved. Bernard Cazeneuve, the Socialist member for Cherbourg and mayor of the city, said "we are discovering manipulation on all sides in an extremely unhealthy context." Sarkozy's blanket dismissal was not enough, he said. "It is the duty of Parliament to demand that full light is shed on the case." Michèle Alliot-Marie, the new Justice Minister, has just promised that the enquiry will be given priority.
Do not expect anything dramatic. L'affaire Karachi has not yet become une affaire d'état. In France, there is a long history of politico-financial skulduggery that simmers on for years and never reaches the courts. For example, a thick cloud of financial scandal dogged Chirac for his 12 years in the presidency but nothing came of it.
It is also worth recalling that Sarkozy is about to abolish the institution of independent investigating judges -- of the kind who are pursuing the Karachi case. Under his reform, the President is to put all investigation into the hands of the prosecution service -- a body which is completely under the orders of the government.
C'est un splendide lapsus que vient de commettre Nombril Ier. Non pas à la tribune du Congrès de Versailles. Non, là, comme on s'y attendait, hormis sa petite phrase idiote sur les actionnaires et les salariés, Minibush, plutôt ridicule, n'a vraiment rien dit, n'a rien annoncé. Tout juste, en bon gosse de riches, a-t-il jeté, au vu de tous, un peu plus de l'argent que la République n'a plus, par les fenêtres du château.
Quatrième, cinquième échecs personnels: Laporte - le grand copain personnel des soirées tristes - n'a rien fait, sinon commettre des bourdes, lâcher des vannes grasses et permettre à Nombril Ir de se faire huer dès qu'il entre dans un stade. Albanel, contrainte de faire par Nombril Ier, a fait n'importe quoi (pub télé, Hadopi...)à la culture? Doublée par Karmitz, elle est donc virée pour masquer le fait que c'est l'Elysée qui a tout décidé.
Rama Yade reste. Elle est encore un tout-petit-peu-punie-mais-pas-trop-tout-de-même-car-elle a-un-trop-joli-minois-et-me-donne-des-chocolats-et-peut-méviter-des-huées-quand-je-vais-voir-jouer-le-psg-avec-mon-niard...Elle ira donc dans les stades.