French prosecutors said yesterday that they had called for the Lafayette case, France’s biggest graft probe in 50 years, to be dismissed without trial after repeatedly being refused defense files on a 1991 warships deal with Taiwan.
The office of state prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin confirmed a report in Le Figaro newspaper saying he had requested the multibillion-dollar case to be dismissed for lack of evidence.
French judges wrapped up a five-year investigation in 2006 into alleged kickbacks paid on the sidelines of the deal, but were repeatedly denied access by the government to top-secret defense files at the heart of the case.
Writing to judges Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Xaviere Simeoni on July 24, the prosecutor said that the probe had not “brought to light the existence of retro-commissions” paid on the sidelines of the sale of six Lafayette-class frigates, according to Le Figaro.
The prosecutors said the probe had also “not enabled the beneficiaries to be identified.”
Taiwan has said as much as US$400 million might have been paid in bribes for the warships built by French defense company Thomson-CSF (now Thales).
Allegations of backhanders emerged after the body of the officer who ran the Taiwanese navy’s arms acquisitions office was found off the east coast in 1993.
Further suspicions arose when Swiss courts discovered US$520 million in accounts held by businessman Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), the main suspect in the case, who was allegedly tasked with convincing Taiwan to buy the ships and renege on a nearly clinched deal with South Korea’s Hyundai.
Taiwan is seeking damages of close to 1 billion euros (US$1.54 billion) from France before an international court of arbitration.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS