Former conservative Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney has been ordered by a court to pay C$470,000 (US$444,000) to former business associate Karlheinz Schreiber.
Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman who is fighting extradition to Germany where he faces tax evasion, fraud and bribery charges, sued Mulroney to recoup C$300,000 in cash the businessman said he had handed to the former prime minister during meetings in New York and Montreal in 1993 and 1994. Mulroney had already left politics at the time.
Schreiber said he paid Mulroney the money to enlist his help in establishing an arms factory and a pasta business, both in Canada.
The lawsuit claimed Mulroney did not follow through on his business commitments.
Mulroney failed to respond to the lawsuit before the deadline, which meant that the court ordered him this week to pay Schreiber the C$300,000, plus C$170,000 in interest.
Mulroney's lawyer, Kenneth Prehogan, said the ruling would not stand on appeal because the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to consider the lawsuit.
The former prime minister's lawyers did not file a defense because they believe the case should be argued in a Quebec court.
Mulroney served as Canada's prime minister from 1984 to 1993.
German prosecutors allege that Schreiber avoided income tax on C$45.6 million in commissions for brokering sales of arms.
Schreiber worked as a lobbyist, consultant and dealmaker in the sale of aircraft and arms.
Schreiber was arrested in Canada on Aug. 31, 1999, for extradition and has been out on bail since shortly after his arrest.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS