Sarkozy aide admits ‘mistake’ in dirty cash affair
‘I am coming forward because I want a clean France’:
France: An advisor to the French president on Africa, admitted to
police he was “mistaken” in naming Senegal’s president and his son as
being involved in a dirty cash scandal, his lawyer said Monday.
Eric Dupond-Moretti told AFP that his client, Robert Bourgi, “told
police that he was mistaken concerning (Senegal’s president) Abdoulaye
Wade and his son” Karim Wade.
Bourgi, a long-time unofficial point man between President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s Elysee palace and the regimes in former African colonies,
rocked French politics earlier this month with a raft of allegations on
illicit cash handouts.
Insisting he was coming forward because he wanted a “clean France”,
Bourgi said he took part in kickback payments between 1995 and 2005
involving former president Jacques Chirac and his former aide Dominique
de Villepin, among others. Villepin served as prime minister from May
2005 to May 2007. Bourgi on September 11 and 12 alleged through several
media that leaders of former French colonies had given $20 million (14.6
million euros) in payoffs to Chirac and Villepin. The state prosecutor
in Paris has opened a preliminary investigation to hear claims by
Bourgi, who acknowledges that he has no material evidence to support his
allegations.
Together with the presidents of Gabon, Burkina Faso, Congo and Ivory
Coast, Wade and his son were among those alleged to have handed over
briefcases stuffed with cash in return for France turning a blind eye to
autocratic rule and rights violations. All those accused by Bourgi have
denied the allegations, and Wade last week threatened like many of the
others to file a defamation lawsuit against Bourgi. But his lawyer said
Monday that on Thursday his questioning by police was “very precise”.
“He admitted that he made a mistake. He stated the names of African
heads of state who fed the electoral campaigns in France and he said
that regarding the Wades, the father and son, he was wrong,”
Dupond-Moretti said on RFI radio.
He added that Bourgi stood by all his other accusations of dirty cash
payments by African leaders to French politicians — the Wades were the
only error. Paris, AFP
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