TERROR AND PAKISTAN

Pakistan terror attack probe links Sarkozy to corruption Pakistan terror attack probe links Sarkozy to corruption–>Fri, Jun 4 05:11 PM Paris, June 4 (DPA) A broad investigation into a 2002 terrorist attack in Pakistan that killed 11 French naval engineers has linked French President Nicolas Sarkozy to a complex kickback affair. As a result, the lawyer representing the families of the victims of that suicide bombing in Karachi has demanded that Sarkozy resign. ‘We consider that Sarkozy lied to the families when he met with them,’ Olivier Morice told DPA. ‘The families are indignant. We think this was a state lie. Sarkozy must therefore resign’. Morice based his demand on the fact that the judges investigating the May 8, 2002 attack believe it was not part of Al Qaeda’s terror war against the West, but rather the result of political infighting among French right-wing politicians, in which Sarkozy apparently played a major role. According to the French online daily Mediapart, Luxembourg police have found that in 1994 Sarkozy, then budget minister under Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, set up an illegal offshore company to help finance his boss’s upcoming presidential campaign. Called Heine, the Luxembourg-based company was allegedly used to pay bribes to intermediaries in overseas arms sales by the French naval defence company DCN and funnel kickbacks from those deals back to France. While paying bribes to foreign agents was legal at the time, kickbacks – or retro-commissions, as they are called here – were not. ‘According to a document, the agreements on the creation of (Heine) appear to come directly from Prime Minister Balladur and Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy,’ the Luxembourg police file reportedly says, misidentifying Sarkozy’s post.