Former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur is to face court over a probe into alleged kickbacks in a submarine deal with Pakistan in the mid-1990s, France’s top prosecutor Francois Molins said Tuesday.
The “Karachi affair” was a major scandal involving negotiations between then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the French presidencies of Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac for the sale of Agosta 90B-class submarines. A contract was eventually signed in 1994.
Investigators are looking into whether alleged kickbacks and commissions from the deal were used to finance Balladur’s presidential campaign in 1995.
Balladur served as prime minister of France between 1993 and 1995 under François Mitterrand and lost his subsequent bid for the presidency to Chirac.
He has denied wrongdoing.
More to come…Source: dw.com
