French court wants African leaders probed

  1. Posted on Wednesday 10 November 2010 - 13:50
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    John Afful Jnr, AfricaNews reporter in Takoradi, Ghana
    French court allows an investigation to proceed into French assets held by three African leaders. They are Gabon, Congo-Republic and Equatorial Guinea.
    Omar Bongo
    The ruling means an inquiry can now look into dozens of bank accounts, luxury properties and cars including Bugattis, Ferraris and a Rolls Royce that a police probe in 2007 found were among assets held in France.

    An independent anti-graft group Transparency International (TA) has alleged that the assets of these leaders and their families were acquired with embezzled public funds.

    A Paris appeals court overruled an earlier submission of the case brought by the independent anti-graft group Transparency International (TA) into the source of the assets.

    William Bourdon, a lawyer for the group, welcomed the decision and said it cleared the way for the inquiry to restart the investigation where it had ended.

    "We're now going to have to trace the origins of the financing ... That won't be very complicated," he told Reuters television. "But at a technical level, there is no reason why there couldn't one day be a big trial of the heads of state, of their families and of their accomplices."

    At the time of the 2007 inquiry, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and Omar Bongo, Gabon's then-president and the father of President Ali Ben Bongo, had denied any wrong doing.

    The case has threatened to strain French diplomatic and business relations with Gabon and Congo, two former French colonies, and with Equatorial Guinea, a growing oil exporter.

    A lawyer representing Equatorial Guinea said the decision unfairly targeted African states and accused the financial backers of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) of having an interest in reopening the case.

    "Why these countries? Why these heads of state? Because there are French influences. Why? Because the NGOs are financed one must say it by Anglo-Saxon funds, or at least for the most part," Isabelle Thomas Werner told Reuters.

    "As far as President Obiang is concerned, there is nothing ... only one miserable villa in Ville d'Avray (west of Paris) that was bought in 1986 when there wasn't the rush for crude oil in Equatorial Guinea," she added.

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