Yann Piat Affair (a former Front National far-right MP, assassinated on February 25, 1994)

Yann Piat , born Yannick Mary 12  June  1949 in Saigon ( French Indochina ) and murdered on 25  February  1994 in Hyères (Var ) is a politician French member of the National Front and the UDF .

Murder 

On 25  February  1994 , she was murdered by two men on a motorcycle as she joined her home by car at the mouth of a lace on the panoramic road of Mont des Oiseaux . At that time, Hyères is nicknamed "Hyères-les-Bombs" for its many attacks, fires and gangland amid speculation businessmen for control of the local economy. Part of the local political class maintains, at that time, ambivalent relationship with the environment .

Yann Piat is the first woman MP killed in France and the second elected shot in twelve years, in the Var.

Track policy 

Immediately, the "case Yann Piat" arouses strong feelings in France, and it requires a political origin. Suspicions are fueled by the revelation in print letters 4 and recent reports from the member concerning links between elected Republican Party and the Var mafia 5 , as well as the discovery of a letter written by Yann Piat two years ago, when she had been away from the right list for regional and in which it involves in wrongful death cases, five men whose Arreckx Maurice , Bernard Tapie and the godfather Jean-Louis Fargette shot meantime 3 .

Track mafia 
Then the investigation is directed towards the mafia murder, police collecting confessions killers Marco di Caro and Lucien Ferri, arrested in June  1994 , and suspecting the Sponsor as Gérard Finale the bar owner 's Macama (located on the harbor Marina Hyères ), whose ambition was to become a sponsor of the underworld of Var 1 and have seen Yann Piat an obstacle in the climb, the crediting of more weight than she had.

Controversies 

However, in October  1997 , investigative journalists Rougeot André and Jean-Michel Verne revive the track of political conspiracy with Yann Piat Affair: Assassins in the heart of power , in which they claim that the member was murdered because it knew too much about the real estate business involving politicians and the general banditry Var. They cite the words of a "general", presented as a former member of the Military Intelligence Directorate , which make Francois Leotard and Jean-Claude Gaudin , under the respective nicknames of "  Squid  "and"  Scooter  "sponsors murder. They complain and initiate an action referred to remove the passages in the book considered defamatory . Unable to provide evidence of their writings, journalists are sentenced with their publisher to pay 230,000 euros of fine , and their book is withdrawn from sale 6 . In response, written Leotard For honor . A few months later, Andre Rougeot deviated from writing Canard chained 7 .

According to Claude Ardid , there would have been, in addition to the strip bar The Macama , a second team, responsible for finishing the job. For him, this is explained by the fact qu'Yann Piat wanted to oppose the expansion of the airport of Toulon-Hyères well as real estate projects (construction of a marina on the double tombolo of the peninsula Isle of Giens, on land sold by the Company saline du Midi 8 ). She heard, he said, by going to the city of Hyères , end links between mafia and political environments.

Trial 

On 4  May  1998 , the trial is held Gerard Finale, two buddies and murderers Yann Piat before the Court of Assizes of the Var . The presiding judge asks Lucien Ferri:

"The President: How the preparation is carried out? 
Ferri: There were preparatory meetings with sponsors, but I was there alone. 
President: Who are the sponsors? 
Ferri: I can not tell you the say. 
President: If there were politicians or rogue? 
Ferri: Both. 
President: Were there politicians? 
Ferri: Yes. 
President: These policies are so powerful that you the dreaded? 
Ferri: Well yes, otherwise I would tell you their names 9 . "

After six hours of deliberation, he leads the June 16 conviction of Gérard Final 10 and the drawer, Lucien Ferri, to life imprisonment , the two stooges to 15 and 13 years in prison. Lucien Ferri died in June 2013 at age 41, a devastating meningitis in a hospital in Toulouse, while he was on parole 11 .

The driver of the motorcycle, Marco Di Caro, was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment  . He gets out of prison November 24, 2007. On 4 August 2008, he was arrested by a device policemen from Draguignan, reinforced by a team IFNU in the house in the center of Flayosc where he was staying since his release. Indeed, on the night of 4 to 5 January 2008, he assaulted a resident of Flayosquet an outlying district of Draguignan, at his home, hooded and armed with a knife. Suiting the action to the threat, he had hindered the victim on her bed with masking tape and searched his home, seizing money in cash ( € 300 ), his credit card and stealing his car. In October 2010, he was sentenced for the assault and 17 years of imprisonment by the Court of Assizes of the Var, penalty reduced to 15 years by the Assize Court of Appeal Bouches-du-Rhône 21 September 2011.

Tributes 

A commemorative plaque was apparent where Yann Piat was murdered. It has now disappeared. In 2011, Antoine De Caunes made ​​a film Yann Piat, a chronicle of murder , with Karin Viard in the role of the member  . The association with the name of the member, however, denounced the filming, opinion criticized by Angélique Piat, daughter of Yann Piat, who had even requested the dissolution of the association felt that the name of his mother was not a "trademark" .


There is a "place Yann Piat" in Bormes-les-Mimosas (Var). In February 2008, the city 's Hyères also inaugurated a "street Yann Piat"  .
Sources:

1. ↑ See liberation.fr.  \
2. ↑ Christian English, Frederic Thibaud, business unclassified , First edition 2004, p.266
3. ↑ The sponsor of the murder dies at age 65 in a hospital in Toulouse during the night of Wednesday 12 to Thursday, May 13, 2010 while serving his sentence in the central Lannemezan (Hautes-Pyrénées) 
4. ↑ Var Morning of June 25, 2013
5. ↑ "Controversy surrounds the memory of Yann Piat"  , in varmatin.com , June 28, 2008.
6. ↑ "Hyères: New avenue, new roundabout and Yann Piat street"\ , in varmatin.com , 18 February 2008.

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Taiwan frigates scandal (fr) (aka La Fayette scandal)

The story of Taiwan and the Lafayette frigates begins in 1989 when the Taipei government was casting around for a new generation of light warships to join its defensive network against threatened invasion by China.

The favourite was a highly capable brand of frigate from South Korea. But in Paris the military-industrial-governmental complex decided to make a strong bid for the contract, even though the Lafayette frigates would cost twice as much as those available from South Korea.

According to Roland Dumas, who was French foreign minister at the time, in 1991 French President Francois Mitterrand authorized $500 million to be spent in bribes and inducements to ensure that Thomson-CSF and the government-owned naval manufacturer DCN got the frigate contract.

Of this, Dumas said in 2003 in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro and later in his book Evidence, Evidence, $100 million went to "the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." This was to stop Beijing expressing, as it usually does, public outrage or threatening sanctions against countries that sell arms to Taiwan, which it claims to own.

Buying off Beijing was an essential part of the project and to get foreign minister Dumas on board, large amounts of money and lavish gifts were funnelled to him via his mistress, Christine Deviers-Joncour, who later wrote a book about the whole affair called Whore of the Republic.

Deviers-Joncour was employed as a public relations representative for the state-owned oil company Elf Aquitaine, from where much of the bribe money for the frigate deal came.

The additional $400 million in bribes authorized by Mitterrand, according to Dumas, were paid to the secretary-general of Taiwan's then and now ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT).

The inference was that the secretary-general would act as paymaster and distribute the largesse where necessary in order to ensure Thomson-CSF and DCN got the frigate contract.

Well, the KMT secretary-general at the time was James Soong, who fell out with the party when it failed to make him its candidate for the presidency in 2000. He has since formed his own party, the People First Party, and remains a significant figure in Taiwan politics who strongly promotes reconciliation with the other recipients of French bribes, the Chinese Communist Party.

Soong vehemently denies that he was the bagman who distributed the French bribes and none of the formal inquiries has revealed a paper trail leading to him.

The story of the Lafayette frigate scandal began to unfold when a body was found floating off the east coast of Taiwan near a major naval base in December 1993.

The body was that of naval captain Yin Ching-feng, who had recently taken over as head of the navy procurement office.

He had also just come back from a trip to France and had intimated to colleagues he had gathered information about the Lafayette contract on which he intended to report to superiors.

At first, Yin's death was dismissed as an accidental drowning, but his wife insisted on a post-mortem examination and this showed he had been battered to death.

Police soon arrested one of Yin's colleagues in the weapons procurement department, Capt. Kuo Li-heng.

When interviewed, Kuo named many names, but without supporting evidence and he is now serving a life sentence for an unrelated conviction for taking bribes.

Police attention soon turned to Thomson's agent in Taiwan, Andrew Wang, who fled the country the day after Capt. Yin's murder. He has since been charged in absentia with Capt. Yin's murder.

Wang and his family are now in hiding, perhaps in Europe. But he, his wife and four children have all been indicted by Taiwan prosecutors for involvement in bribery.

Taiwan also persuaded Swiss banks to freeze Wang's 46 bank accounts and the $520 million they contained. The banks also provided crates of documents that formed much of the basis for the case heard by the arbitration court.

Among those who have died since 1993 are a Taiwanese bank official who acted for the naval dockyards; a French intelligence agent, Thierry Imbot, assigned to watch the frigate deal for the French secret service, who fell to his death from his Paris apartment; a former Taiwan-based Thomson employee named Jacques Morrison, and Yin's nephew.

In an unprecedented judgment, an international court has told a leading French arms dealer to pay the government of Taiwan over $860 million in compensation for bribes and kickbacks involved in the island nation's 1991 purchase of six naval frigates.

The Paris-based International Court of Arbitration, an offshoot of the International Chamber of Commerce, found earlier this month that the French company Thomson-CSF, which has since changed its name to Thales SA, spent over $500 million on bribes to secure the $2.5-billion deal to sell six Lafayette class frigates to Taiwan.

Taiwan's navy filed for arbitration with the court in 2001 and the judgment includes nearly $600 million over the unlawful kickbacks, $250 million in interest and $20 million for legal fees.

If and how Thales will pay the restitution remains to be seen.

But although the Taiwan government welcomed the judgment, this arbitration has done nothing to bring judicial closure to a scandal that has roiled both Taiwanese and French politics for nearly two decades.

At least one person was murdered in an apparent attempt to cover up the massive bribery and fraud involved in the frigate deal. Another eight people associated with the story have died under strange or mysterious circumstances.

No one has been charged over the murder, though 13 military officers and 15 arms dealers have been jailed in Taiwan over bribery and leaking military secrets.

But despite these investigations and court cases in both France and Taiwan, there is still no clear picture that the political leaders who oversaw the bribery and fraud have been identified and called to account.

Warranted or not, French arms manufacturers have long held the reputation of bowing to local customs regarding bribery and kickbacks in order to gain contracts.

UNFOLDING EVENTS

- Feb. 1, 1993: Taiwan Signs A $2.8-Billion Contract For Six Modified Lafayette Class Frigates, Which Are To Be Assembled In Taiwan By China Ship Building Corp (CSBC). Because Of Pressure From Mainland China, The Original Contract Only Provides For The Sale Of The Frigates And Their Engines, Without Any Arms, Surveillance Equipment Or Combat-Management Systems.

- Dec. 9, 1993: Naval Captain Yin Ching-Feng Disappears. His Body Is Later Found Floating In The Water And An Independent Autopsy Demanded By His Widow Points Out That His Head Had Been Bashed In.

- Dec. 20, 1993: Andrew Wang, The Taiwanese Agent For Thomson-CSF, Leaves Taiwan.

- May 24, 1996: The First Assembled Frigate Is Delivered To Taiwan.

- Sept. 26, 2000: Andrew Wang Is Charged In Absentia With Captain Yin Ching-Feng's Murder.

- Oct. 25, 2000: Former Taiwanese Naval Commander-In-Chief Yeh Changtung, Plus Lei Hsueh-Ming (In Charge Of Vessels Management) And Yao Nungchung (In Charge Of Weapons Procurement) Are Formally Reprimanded Over The Frigate Scandal, In The Wake Of Documents Released By Taiwan's Government Watchdog Agency, The Control Yuan.

- March 2002: Taiwanese Control Yuan Investigators Release Their Report. It Found That The Price Of The Frigate Deal Had Been Inflated To $2 Billion From The Original Quote Of $1 Billion, And That Taiwanese Politicians And Military Leaders Pocketed $26.75 Million In Kickbacks From The Sale.

- March 1, 2003: France's Former Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, Tells Le Figaro Newspaper That France Paid $500 Million In Bribes For The Frigate Deal. Dumas Says That The Sum Was Approved By Former President Francois Mitterrand, That $400 Million Was Paid To The Secretary-General Of Taiwan's Ruling KMT Party, And $100 Million Went To The Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee In Beijing.

- Oct. 6, 2005: The Swiss Federal Commission Approves The Handover Of Bank Files To Foreign Judicial Authorities Concerning The Sale Of The Warships, Rejecting An Appeal By Fugitive Wang To Stop Judicial Cooperation With Taiwan, France, And Liechtenstein.

- Oct. 28, 2005: Taiwanese State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-Chao Orders The Unsealing Of Swiss Bank Files Related To The Scandal.

- August 6, 2008: French Prosecutors In The Taiwan Frigate Scandal Dismiss The Case After Seven Years, For "Lack Of Evidence."

- May 3, 2010: An International Court Of Arbitration Rules That Thales, Previously Called Thomson-CSF, And French State-Owned Shipbuilder DCN Violated The Anti-Corruption Clause In Its 1991 Contract To Sell Frigates To Taiwan. Damages Are Set At $861 Million.

Sources:

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

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Angolagate (arms-for-oil scandal)

President José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola

Angolagate, also known as the Mitterrand–Pasqua affair, is an international political scandal over the secret sale and shipment of arms from Central Europe to the government of Angola by the Government of France in the 1990s. The scandal has been tied to several prominent figures in French politics.

Bicesse Accords

President José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola met with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA in Bicesse/Portugal and signed the Bicesse Accords, a peace agreement that attempted unsuccessfully to end the Angolan Civil War, on May 31, 1991, with the mediation of the Portuguese government. The accords laid out a transition to multi-party democracy under the supervision of the United Nations' UNAVEM II mission with a presidential election in a year.

The accords attempted to demobilize the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces(FAA). The FAA would consist of a national army with 40,000 troops, navy with 6,000, and air force with 4,000. While UNITA largely did not disarm, the FAA complied with the accord and demobilized, leaving the government disadvantaged. At the same time, the Cuban troops that had helped MPLA forces to push back the South African army and UNITA rebels during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, completed their withdrawal from Angola. This meant that the MPLA would have an even greater disadvantage if fighting resumed (as they were aligned with the FAA).

Angola held a presidential election in 1992. In the first round dos Santos officially received 49.57% of the vote and Savimbi won 40.6%. Savimbi said the election had neither been free nor fair and refused to participate in the second round. International observers, however, affirmed that the elections had been largely free and fair. Savimbi, along with eight opposition parties and many other election observers, said the election had been neither free nor fair. The MPLA massacred over ten thousand UNITA and FNLA voters nationwide in a few days in what was known as the Halloween Massacre. UNITA renewed its guerrilla war, capturing five of Angola's eighteen provincial capitals.

Arms Sales

With the MPLA on the verge of defeat, dos Santos contacted Jean-Bernard Curial, the former French Socialist Party Southern Africa expert, and asked him to come to Luanda. When he came back, Curial, supportive of dos Santos, contacted members of the government, President's advisor for African Affairs, Bruno Delahe and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of then-President François Mitterrand. Jean-Christophe referred Curial to Pierre Falcone, head of Brenco International, a consortium of companies, and adviser toSofremi, a parastatal run by the right-wing Interior Minister Charles Pasqua. Pasqua believed that in the early 1990s the U.S. government's support for UNITA had diminished while tacit support for the MPLA increased because peace would increase oil output. He argued that if Mitterrand's position on Angola did not change in kind, French oil companies would miss out on a vital opportunity.^[4]

Jean-Christophe's lawyer says that Jean-Christophe Mitterrand first met Falcone after he stopped working as an expert on Africa for the Élysée. Falcone and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand first met in July 1992 in Phoenix, Arizona, after he left his charges as President's advisor for African Affairs. At that time he was with his family, on holiday, in the United States, with a relation who was an employee of Thomson CSF, a French arms and electronics company. He introduced Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to his friend Pierre Falcone during a dinner at his home in Scottsdale in July 1992. At that time Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was free of government charges until May 1992, and had already signed a contract with a private French company (La compagnie generale des Eaux).

After the Angolan elections (see above), Curial met Falcone, who went to Angola for the first time and organised for the Angolan government a successful pre-paid operation in oil dealing. Later the Angolan government gave him an official mission to supervise supplying his army with arms from an East Central European country (Slovakia) and the population with food and medicine. The Angolan government bought USD $47 million worth of ammunition, mortar, and artillery from the Slovakian company ZTS-OZOS on November 7, 1993, which dos Santos received in December. In April 1994 the government bought $463 million worth of fighter aircraft and tanks. By late 1994 the Angolan government had purchased $633 million worth of weapons.

Dos Santos secretly had Elísio de Figueiredo, the former ambassador of Angola to France, act as Angola's envoy to friendly contacts in France. Falcone worked with the Angolan government through Figueiredo.

Scandal Uncovered

Jean-Charles Marchiani, Pasqua's subordinate, allegedly went to Luanda and signed an agreement with dos Santos on November 29, 1994, that promised to organise a better relationship with the French government where some ministers, Leotard (ministry for defense), and Alain Madelin (Minister for finances), were openly supporting Jonas Savimbi for many years. In exchange they seemed to receive Angolese political and financial agreement for Pasqua's party which was running for European elections. Afterwards, Jacques Chirac planned to run for president in the 1995 election. When Pasqua endorsed Edouard Balladur, Chirac's rival, Chirac's supporters told French Inland Revenue about Falcone's arms shipments, alleging income tax evasion. While there is agreement that no arms ever passed through France, French Inland Revenue investigated individuals connected with the scandal because agreements were allegedly signed in Paris. Allain Guilloux, Brenco International's fiscal lawyer in France, says the Angolan government agreed to Marchiani's deal in Luanda, not Paris.

In 1996 the French Financial Brigades confiscated 50,000 documents from the offices of Falcone and Arcadi Gaydamak, a Russian–Israeli businessman and associate of Falcone.

Arrest and trial

French police arrested Falcone on December 1, 2000, on charges of tax fraud. Seven days later the French government issued a warrant for the arrest of Gaydamak. French police arrested Jean-Christophe Mitterrand on December 21 for his supposed role in the arms deal, but released him on January 11 when his mother paid his $725,000 bail. A judge found Mitterrand guilty in 2004 of tax fraud and gave him a suspended sentence of 30 months in prison.

In April 2007, the investigative magistrate Jean-Philippe Courroye indicted 42 people, including Jean-Christophe Mitterrand,Jacques Attali, Charles Pasqua and Jean-Charles Marchiani, for having received illegal payments from Pierre Falcone. Arcadi Gaydamak and Falcone were also indicted. The writer Paul-Loup Sulitzer has also been indicted, charged of having received €380,000 from Falcone, as well as the Union for a Popular Movement deputy Georges Fenech, charged of having received €15,200 in 1997 from Brenco. The trial started in 2008, in absentia of Gaydamak who left for Israel.

Sulitzer admitted taking €300,000 in return for information in December 2008, testifying against Falcone. He accused prosecutors of "trying to kill a mosquito with a nuclear bomb."

Sentencing

The sentences for the "Angolagate affair" were handed down on October 27, 2009. Charles Pasqua and Jean-Charles Marchiani were found guilty of taking money from Gaydamak and Falcone while knowing it was proceeds of crime. Pasqua was sentenced to three years in prison of which two suspended, and €100,000 fine. Marchiani was sentenced to three months in prison. Gaydamak and Falcone were found guilty of illegal arms deals, tax fraud, money laundering, embezzlement and others, sentenced to six years in prison and multi-mlllion-euro fines each. Gaydamak was sentenced in absentia, and it was unclear whether he would ever serve the prison term.Falcone, who tried and failed to claim diplomatic immunity in the case, was taken into custody by police when the judge finished reading out the sentences. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was found guilty of receiving $2 million from Falcone and Gaydamak to promote their interests, and sentenced to a two year suspended sentence and a €375,000 fine. Paul-Loup Sulitzer was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to 15 months in prison and a €100,000 fine. Jacques Attali and Georges Fenech were acquitted. In total, thirty six individuals were convicted of various levels of involvement in the scandal, 21 of them appealed the decision.

Appeal decision

The Paris Court of Appeal’s decision was given on April 29th 2011 and its findings were quite different. Indeed, the Paris Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua as well as Jean-Charles Marchiani’s. The charges against Pierre Falcone and Arcadi Gaydamak were also dropped. The Court of Appeal particularly recognized that they had acted under the authority of a “state mandate” issued by the Angolan government which was seeking to “ensure the survival” of the country and that it was “in that context and while the situation worsened” that it asked Pierre Falcone and Arcadi Gaydamak to acquire arms as well as food and medicine.

Sources :

1.  Wright, George (1997). The Destruction of a Nation: United States' Policy Towards Angola Since 1945. p. 159.
2. Jump up "All the President's Men". Global Witness. March 2002. p. 11.
3. Jump up^ Rothchild, Donald S (1997). Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation. p. 134. 
4. (fr) or (es) "All the President's Men". Global Witness. March 2002. pp. 11–13
5. Jump up to:(fr) or (es) "All the President's Men". Global Witness. March 2002. pp. 11–13.
6. Jump up"Angolagate : l'autre vie de Pierre Falcone". Le Point. 2008-10-02.
7. Jump up^ "The Oil Diagnostic in Angola: An Update". Human Rights Watch. March 2001.
8. Jump up^ Hodges, Tony (2001). Angola. p. 165.
9. Jump up^ "Angola-French relations on the mend: Sarkozy". The Tocqueville Connection.
10. Jump up^ "Angolagate: les principaux acteurs de l'affaire". Le Figaro. 2007-03-28.

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The Canard enchaîné satirical newspaper fought to bring to light evidence of alleged corruption during President Jacques Chirac's tenure as mayor of Paris

Jacques Chirac

In the 1980s and 1990s there were, in the Paris region (Île-de-France), multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources. Almost all involved were members of the conservative Rally for the Republic (RPR) ruling party, which became the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in 2002.

Jacques Chirac was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995 and has been named in several cases of alleged corruption and abuse, some of which have already led to felony convictions.

Chirac, as president of France (until 16 May 2007), enjoyed virtual immunity from prosecution for acts preceding his tenure as president, following from decision 98-408 DC of the Constitutional Council on 22 January 1999. This decision itself was highly controversial: the council was consulted on the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, not about the status of the president with respect to the national criminal justice system. At the time, the president of the council was Roland Dumas, who later had to retire from his functions because of his implication in the Elf Aquitaine scandal.

Chirac refused to testify before investigating magistrate Éric Halphen, arguing that this would be incompatible with his presidential functions.

On 10 October 2001, the Court of Cassation ruled that, while the president cannot be prosecuted by normal judicial means during his mandate, such an impossibility suspends the delays of prescription (statute of limitation). If Chirac does not run for office again in 2007 or is not re-elected, he may then be prosecuted on the several affairs he is involved in. This might explain why in 2003 some in the presidential entourage floated around the idea of Chirac running for a third term.

Chirac's foremost critic was deputy Arnaud Montebourg of the Socialist Party, who filed a motion to bring him in front of the High Court of Justice (a procedure similar toimpeachment, which has never been applied).

Sources : Wikipedia

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Infected blood scandal

Georgina Dufoix and former boss Laurent Fabius 

France's Infected blood scandal began in April 1991 when doctor and journalist Anne-Marie Casteret published an article in the weekly magazine the L'Événement du jeudiproving that the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine knowingly distributed blood products contaminated with HIV to haemophiliacs in 1984 and 1985.

In 1992, Anne-Marie Casteret published a book Blood scandal (L'affaire du sang) which refuted the argument that nobody was aware in 1985 that the heating of blood made the virus inactive. The book included evidence that as early as 1983, researchers had put forth this assumption.

In 1999, the former socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix and former Health Minister Edmond Herve were charged with "manslaughter". The Court of Justice of Republic found Edmond Herve guilty, and acquitted Fabius and Dufoix. Although Herve was found guilty, he received no sentence.

Former French Premier Laurent Fabius and one of his ex-ministers have been acquitted of manslaughter in France's tainted blood scandal.

But their colleague, former Health Minister Edmond Herve, has been convicted for his role in the contamination of two people who were given HIV-tainted blood.

The court did not hand down a punishment to Mr Herve. Judge Christian Le Gunehec said that due to the length of the scandal, the former health minister had not benefited from the "presumption of innocence to which he is entitled".

Mr Herve condemned the court's decision and said that he had only done his duty as a minister.

Edmond Herve: Guilty but no sentence

"The decision of the court lacks courage. It didn't have the courage to completely acquit me and it didn't have the courage to really convict me," he said.

His superior at the time, former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix, was acquitted alongside Mr Fabius on charges relating to the deaths from Aids of five people, and the contamination of two others during a key period in 1985.

Mr Herve was convicted in connection with two of the seven cases.

The verdict followed 10 days of debate before the specially convened Court of Justice of the Republic - comprising a mixed panel of magistrates and 12 members of parliament.

The court was the first since World War II to try ministers for crimes allegedly committed while in office.

In France's biggest public health scandal, about 4,000 people, many of them haemophiliacs, were given blood infected with the virus.

Many of those contaminated have since died. In most cases they received transfusions before the link between HIV, Aids and blood was fully understood.

Charges

All three politicians were alleged to have delayed the introduction of a US blood-screening test in France until a rival French product was ready to go on the market.

Hugh Schofield reports on the end to a highly unusual and controversial trial

Ms Dufoix and Mr Herve were also accused of failing to order the warming of blood products to kill the virus.

The former health minister was also charged with failing to implement a directive advising against accepting blood from high-risk donors, notably homosexuals, drug addicts and prisoners.

During the hearings, Mr Fabius argued that any mistakes were made by his administration.

As prime minister he could not have had the expertise to decide on such a complicated issue as how to combat the still new disease of Aids.

Families' anger

Victims and their families were outraged at the ruling after waiting years for the ministers they saw as responsible to be brought to justice.

"Why don't you go ahead and give them the Legion of Honour while you're at it?" demanded Patrice Gaudin. His two sons had died after being contaminated with Aids-tainted blood.

And an association representing French people who have undergone blood transfusions denounced the acquittals as "dishonourable" and said the trial was "fixed".

The Association Francaise des Transfuses (AFT) denounced the "two-speed justice which makes some politicians untouchable".

It said that a forthcoming trial of the ministers' advisers would reveal "everything about the ministers that the Court of Justice tried to hide from the French people".

Our Paris Correspondent, Hugh Schofield, says that the decision not to punish Mr Herve will only increase the anger of the blood victims' families, who felt that the Court of Justice - specially set up so that ministers could be tried by an assembly of their peers - would end up protecting them.

SOURCES : BBC News

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