PARIS, 30 January 2003 — Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas wept yesterday as the Paris appeals court overturned his conviction in a kickbacks-for-arms contract scandal that brought down the top managers of oil giant Elf.
Dumas, 80, was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 152,000 euros in May 2001 for accepting lavish gifts from a mistress, paid for by oil firm Elf to lobby him into securing a 1991 deal to sell frigates to Taiwan.
A senior minister under the late President Francois Mitterrand, Dumas has always denied he knew that gifts from his then lover Christine Deviers-Joncour were funded by Elf. The appeal court ruled there was no proof that Dumas was aware of where the money for the gifts came from.
Dumas’ original conviction was a devastating blow to Mitterrand’s former right-hand man, forcing him to quit the post he went on to occupy as head of the Constitutional Court, France’s top legal body.
"Justice has triumphed. (Dumas) hoped for this from the bottom of his heart. I saw his eyes fill with tears and I also cried," Dumas’ lawyer Jean-Rene Farthouat told reporters. The scandal, spectacular even by French standards, rocked the country, exposing tales of sex and greed within France’s business and political elite.
The furor erupted when Deviers-Joncour admitted Elf gave her some $10 million to lobby Dumas to approve the sale of six frigates to Taiwan, breaching France’s policy of not arming the island which China regards as a renegade province.
Deviers-Joncour, 54, showered Dumas with gifts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including a $1,500 pair of handmade boots and antique statues worth $40,000.
The former lingerie model, who put her side of the scandal in a book entitled "The Whore of the Republic", had her 18-month prison sentence upheld by the appeals court.
The court did trim, however, sentences handed down to ex-Elf head Loik Le Foch-Prigent and his former deputy Alfred Sirven, reducing them to 30 months and three years respectively from 3-1/2 and four years.
Sirven, 76, was in high spirits after the decision, telling journalists: "At 76 years, what counts is the future. I am very happy for Roland Dumas." Le Floch-Prigent, 59, was not present, due to ill health.
A fifth defendant, businessman Gilbert Miara, was handed a one-year jail term, with a further year suspended. The eight-year investigation into the Elf affair uncovered allegations that will see 37 more defendants stand trial in mid-March on charges involving hundreds of millions of euros allegedly siphoned off by Elf into offshore bank accounts. (R)
