Paris, July 04: Anti-terror judges leading an
inquiry into the 2002 killing of 11 French engineers in
Pakistan have asked France's defence minister to open up
classified government files, a source said on Saturday.
Judges Marc Trevidic et Yves Jannier want "all
documents" pertaining to the Karachi attack -- linked to a
contract with French state firm DCN and murky commissions - be
made available, French weekly Le Point added on its website.
The inquiry has focused on allegations of a link to a
corrupt 1994 submarine deal with Islamabad, amid suspicions
the attack could have been ordered as punishment after Paris
stopped paying commissions to Pakistani intermediaries.
The 11 engineers, along with three Pakistani victims,
were employed on the submarine deal when a car packed with
explosives rammed into their minibus on May 8, 2002.
The lawyer for the victim's families, Olivier Morice,
believes the attack is directly linked to "a halt to
commission payments" from France to Islamabad.
Magali Drouet, daughter of one victim, says the
magistrates specifically believe the attack was ordered
because payments were not made to Asif Ali Zardari, who is now
Pakistan's President but was a minister at the time.
According to Le Point, the investigating magistrates
want Defence Minister Herve Morin to order the release of
sealed documents revealing the recipients of these payments
plus intelligence files on the attack.
Two alleged members of an al Qaeda-linked group were
convicted in Pakistan in 2003 over the Karachi attack, but
both were acquitted in May this year after a court ruled there
was insufficient evidence against them. Details of the
commission payments for the sub deal emerged in 2008 as part
of an investigation into French arms sales.
Legal at the time -- although they have since been
banned -- the commissions were set up when Edouard Balladur
was prime minister. They stopped after his rival Jacques
Chirac was elected president in 1995.
Investigators suspect Chirac blocked the payments
because kickbacks were being siphoned off to fund a war chest
for his rival Balladur, who ran unsuccessfully against him in
the 1995 race.
Balladur's campaign manager was the young Nicolas
Sarkozy. Now president, Sarkozy last month dismissed any
suggestion of links to commission payments as "grotesque."
The Paris prosecutor's office has also said there were
"no objective elements" linking the attack to the submarine
deal.
Classified documents can only be disclosed if the
defence minister acts following guidance from a special French
government commission designed to protect the national
interest.
Morin told French radio last month that he was unaware
of the contents of any such documents, adding that he was
"only committed to declassifying what the commission
recommends be declassified."
Bureau Report