Chirac linked to £30m secret bank account

Actualité | In English

Rondot questioned about 'japanese affair'.

Publié le 23 mai 2007
Actualisé le 23 mai 2007 : 16h16

Report by Eric Decouty


"How did you come to conduct an inquiry into this Japanese affair?" That is how Judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons yesterday morning got down to what is set to be a marathon questioning of General Philippe Rondot. The judges went on to ask him about the role of Gilbert Flam, former member of the DGSE [Directorate-General for External Security], in the case. Flam, who is now a magistrate at the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office, is a civil party claiming damages in the Clearstream case for having been included on the list of falsified listings.

By beginning with the "Japanese affair," the two judges are apparently simply respecting the chronology of General Rondot's famous handwritten notes, seized a year ago at his home in Meudon. In 2001, thus three years before he was charged with conducting a parallel inquiry into Clearstream, he was asked by Jacques Chirac about a possible operation against the president hatched within the DGSE. Agents headed by Gilbert Flam were suspected of having "worked" on an account at the Tokyo Sowa Bank, allegedly belonging to Jacques Chirac.
Nervousness at the Pinnacle of Power

General Rondot's personal notes show a high degree of nervousness at the very pinnacle of the French State and tension between the president and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. But the notes do not in themselves prove the existence of such an account, one that is always vigorously denied by those close to Jacques Chirac.

When he was first questioned on 28 March 2006, General Rondot had denied himself having investigated this affair, explaining: "I was charged with verifying that DGSE officers had not tried, outside of their hierarchy, to put together a file on the president by revealing his account in Japan." The general went on to say that: "My conclusion following the internal verifications at the DGSE that I followed up was that this affair was very unclear and that probably there was no basis of truth."

It seems that the judges want to launch investigations on this subject on the fringes of the Clearstream inquiry. Last week, for example, they included in the case file a large number of documents seized from General Rondot a year ago and that had previously remained under wraps and not the subject of an investigation.

According to our information, apart from the files referring to two famous journalists and another on the general's "contacts," four bulky files are the subject of particular attention.

The first is entitled "Japanese Affair -President Chirac Affair", the second and third are known as "Affair PR 1 (President of the Republic, ed) and "Affair PR2". Although there is nothing to suggest that General Rondot was in possession of conclusive documents, the volume of documents in itself is causing many questions to be asked.

Finally, there is a fourth file entitled "Baghdad, Hostages Affair" that is believed to be on the release of journalists Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Christian Chesnot of Radio France, in December 2004.

It remains to be seen whether the two judges charged with the investigation into the Clearstream listings can legally investigate all these aspects without any apparent link to the case with which they are charged.

Chirac called for questioning in Clearstream probe
Expatica
2007-06-12

Former French president Chirac has been summoned for questioning over the Clearstream scandal, a French newspaper claimed, but staff of Chirac, whose presidential immunity expires on Saturday, denied it.

Judges allegedly want to ask him about leaks to the press of sworn testimony of a senior intelligence official at the height of the scandal.

Chirac's name was also linked to illegal party funding scandals in the 80s and 90s, but he avoided questioning as president by invoking his immunity.

Former president Jacques Chirac to be questioned in party funding probe

Expatica
2007-06-26

Former French president Chirac will be questioned by judges investigating an illegal party funding scam dating from his time as Paris mayor. He faces possible questioning in three related cases too.

Invoking his immunity, however, Chirac has refused to answer summonses over the so-called Clearstream affair, which took place when he was president.

French ex-PM's office is searched
BBC News
2007-07-06

French magistrates probing the Clearstream affair, an alleged dirty tricks campaign in 2004 against Nicolas Sarkozy, have searched the former offices of then-PM Dominique de Villepin. He allegedly encouraged the leaking of papers which falsely implicated his rival in a bribery scandal.

De Villepin has demanded to be declared an "assisted witness", which would give his lawyers access to police files. A lawyer for former President Chirac meanwhile has said that his client would not co-operate with investigators, citing presidential immunity.

De Villepin once harboured presidential ambitions of his own and seemed to enjoy the support of Chirac, before Mr Sarkozy was officially designated as the candidate for the governing UMP.

Chirac accused of 'treason' over Djibouti judge death
Expatica
June 13, 2007

Former French president Chirac was accused of "treason" for allegedly helping the government of Djibouti cover up the truth behind the death of a French judge.

The widow of Bernard Borrel said that France cooperated with Djibouti's efforts to bury the affair because of fears of losing its military base in the country.

When Borrel's half-burned body was found at the foot of a ravine in 1995, a local enquiry concluded he had committed suicide. But French justice officials disputed the findings and opened a murder investigation.

The government of Djibouti has tried for years to gain access to the dossier being compiled by French investigating magistrates, but their demands have been repeatedly turned down by French justice officials. In January 2006, Djibouti then filed suit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), claiming that France had broken a bilateral agreement on judicial assistance.

In March this year judges in France opened a separate investigation into allegations of French political pressure in the Borrel case. They raided the French ministries of justice and foreign affairs and seized documents. An attempt to search the presidential Elysee palace was thwarted because of Chirac's presidential immunity.

Now, the seized documents have been leaked to the press, and they appear to show that it was Chirac himself who advised Guelleh to take France before the ICJ.

Chirac's presidential immunity expires on Saturday, one month after he left office.

The 'arms smuggler', the murdered judge, and a scandal threatening to engulf Chirac

The Independent
13 July 2007

Recently released classified documents suggest that France covered up the murder of one of its own judges in the tiny African state of Djibouti in 1995.

The so-called "Affaire Borrel" threatens to explode into a far-ranging political and diplomatic scandal, engulfing, among others, the former president, Jacques Chirac.

Judge Bernard Borrel, 39, was officially in the former French colony on the Red Sea - site of France's largest military base in Africa - to help to reform the penal code. It has since emerged that he was also investigating alleged drugs and arms smuggling by the man who was to become Djibouti's president, Ismael Omar Guelleh.

Borrel's partially burned body was found at the foot of a ravine in October 1995. The local authorities, supported by Paris, declared that he had committed suicide.

For 12 years his widow, Elisabeth, has fought to prove that her husband was murdered. Last month President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to meet her - the first senior French politician ever to do so. He promised to ensure that all relevant classified information was released.

Within hours the chief public prosecutor in Paris released a statement confirming that the medical evidence proved that Borrel was murdered.

This week, two senior former French intelligence officers who were present in Djibouti at the time told a judge that Borrel was investigating the smuggling of drugs and arms through the strategically placed statelet at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

This "traffic" allegedly involved French citizens and Mr Guelleh - known as "IOG" - the nephew of the then president and the heir apparent to the role. Mr Guelleh was elected head of state four years later.

One unnamed intelligence officer - a former deputy head of the French equivalent of MI6 - told the investigating magistrate, Sophie Clément, that the judge's death was always known by French authorities to have been a murder.

In his confidential testimony this week, which was leaked to the French news agency, Agence France-Presse, he said: "The (Djibouti) justice minister had asked M. Borrel to put together a dossier on all the trafficking involving Ismael Omar Guelleh. It was a way of building a case to keep IOG from power.

"The idea that [Borrel's death] was suicide was ridiculous to anyone who knew the region. There were all kinds of threats... a clan war was going on."

Mme Borrel and her lawyers have maintained for years that France tried to hush up the affair because it did not want to jeopardise its strategic interests in Djibouti. The statelet, with a population of 790,000, borders Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia and faces Aden across the mouth of the Red Sea. The large French military base there has been partially loaned to the United States since 2001 to help American operations in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa.

In recent days it has also emerged that the French military in Djibouti knew about Borrel's death two hours before his body was found by local police. Radio France Internationale has been accused of bowing to pressure from Djibouti and the French government to remove an investigative journalist from the Borrel story in 2005.

The affair has many other ramifications. Djibouti brought a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague in January 2006 to try to force France to hand over its legal dossier on Borrel's death. According to a document recently discovered by investigators at the foreign ministry in Paris, M. Chirac urged Djibouti to bring the case against France.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, two other investigating judges raided the home of Michel de Bonnecorse, a former senior African adviser to M. Chirac. The former president has let it be known that he will refuse to answer any questions about the "Affaire Borrel". He claims permanent legal immunity for all his actions while in the Elysée palace.

In an interview with Le Monde last weekend, the Djibouti President denied all knowledge of the affair. "The Republic of Djibouti was not involved, either closely or from afar, in the death of Bernard Borrel," he said.