Posted on 11/21/2007 3:34:15 PM PST by Cincinna
Former President Jacques Chirac was placed under formal investigation on Wednesday on suspicion that he misused public funds by handing out bogus work contracts while mayor of Paris.
Chirac's lawyer, Jacques Veil, said a judge examining "fraudulent misuse of public funds"questioned his client for three and a half hours on Wednesday. Veil said: "They talked in general terms about the organization of the Paris City Hall," which Chirac headed as mayor between 1977 and 1995. More hearings would follow, the lawyer said.
Chirac, whose term ended in May, defended himself in an article published in Le Monde on Wednesday. He said that he had made "legitimate and necessary" appointments while he was mayor. "There was never any personal enrichment." He wrote that so "many inaccuracies, often caricatures, sometimes excesses," had been circulating about this subject that he found it necessary to address himself to the French people.
Chirac, who will be 75 next week, is the first former president in modern France to be placed under formal examination by an investigating magistrate. Under French law this procedure is a step short of an indictment. It means that charges are taken seriously enough to be pursued by an investigating judge.
The legal step creates a new setback for Chirac who has been linked to other investigations connected to his 18-year tenure as Paris mayor. Soon after he lost his presidential immunity in July, he was heard by a judge in a different case investigating corruption in political party financing.
Le Monde said Chirac asked to be questioned in his own suite of offices along the Seine in Paris, as he was in July. But the judge assigned to the case by the French judiciary, Xavière Simeoni, insisted on summoning him to her chambers in the nearby Palace of Justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I remember reports of Chiraq, while Mayor of Paris, submitting expenses for lunch that averaged $800 ~ $900 a day, every day, for many years.
Chiraq corrupt? Say it ain’t so.
What’d he do ? Sell missile secrets to the Red Chinese ?
what a weird coincidence:
Clinton wins surprise support from former French first lady
(Bernadette Chirac)
Reuters | Nov 22, 2007 | James Mackenzie
Posted on 11/23/2007 3:11:26 AM EST by Cincinna
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929515/posts
(thanks Cincinna)
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