African leaders regularly gave briefcases of cash to former French president Jacques Chirac and former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin to fund election campaigns, an Africa expert close to French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said.
The allegations sparked a fresh row over the role of shadowy middlemen and dirty money in French dealings with Africa. The system known as francafrique, in which kickbacks, petrodollars and privileged relations defined Paris’s foreign policy, is back in the spotlight in the run-up to next year’s presidential campaign.
A Parisian lawyer, Robert Bourgi, who advised Chirac and De Villepin on African affairs, before switching allegiance to their rival Sarkozy, described how between 1995 and 2005 he allegedly acted as a “bag carrier” at the highest level of the French state.
He claimed he delivered hundreds of thousands of US dollars in cash from African leaders to Chirac and De Villepin, mostly stuffed into briefcases, but once hidden in a set of African drums, or in a sports bag that was so full of notes he got backache carrying it through the underground corridors of the Elysee palace.
“There was never less than 5 million [French] francs. It could go up to 15 million,” Bourgi told Le Journal du Dimanche, describing how he had allegedly helped deliver cash to Chirac as mayor of Paris before he became president.
He said Chirac would offer him a beer while putting the wads of cash into a vault.
Bourgi claimed five African heads of states, including ousted Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo and former Gabon president Omar Bongo, paid about US$10 million for Chirac’s 2002 election campaign.
The allegations come before publication next week of an explosive book, The Republic of the Briefcases, by journalist Pierre Pean, which will examine the role of businessmen and Africa advisers and suggest Sarkozy also benefited from African leaders.
Bourgi said when he went to work for Sarkozy, there were no briefcases of cash. However, a Chirac adviser, Michel de Bonnecorse, says in Pean’s book that cash from African leaders was also given to Sarkozy when he was interior minister. The Elysee refused to comment.
De Villepin denounced claims that he or Chirac took money as “nonsense and smokescreens” and an effort to smear them.
A spokesperson for Sarkozy’s ruling right-wing UMP party said if Bourgi had evidence of any wrongdoing he should go to the police.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of