Posted on 11/11/2009 9:51:55 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Report: Pakistani president suspected of graft in submarine sale
South Asia News
Nov 10, 2009, 10:56 GMT
Paris - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is suspected of having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three French submarines to the Pakistani Navy, the daily Liberation reported Tuesday.
In addition, investigators believe that the non-payment of the full amount of the agreed kickbacks may have led to the deaths of 11 French nationals in a 2002 terror attack in the city of Karachi.
In the report, Liberation says it acquired documents that allegedly show that Zardari received 4.3 million dollars in kickbacks from the sale of three Agosta 90 submarines for 825 million euros (currently 1.237 billion dollars).
The documents were sent to the Pakistani National Accountability Bureau (NAB) by British authorities in April 2001 and indicate that Zardari received several large payments into his Swiss bank accounts from a Lebanese businessman, Abdulrahman el-Assir, in 1994 and 1995.
According to a former executive of the French naval defence company DCN, French authorities chose el-Assir to act as intermediary in the deal.
He allegedly deposited a total of 1.3 million dollars in Zardari's bank accounts between August 15 and 30, 1994, one month before the submarine contract was signed, and then 1.2 million dollars and 1.8 million dollars one year later.
According to DCN employees who testified in the terror attack investigation, the kickbacks to Pakistan in the deal totalled 10 per cent of the purchase amount, with 6 per cent, or 49.5 million dollars, going to the military and 4 per cent, or 33 million euros, being funneled to political circles.
In 2001, former Pakistani Navy chief-of-staff Mansour Ul-Haq was arrested for his part in the deal and forced to repay 7 million dollars, the daily says.
Legal proceedings against Zardari were dropped in April 2008, several months before he was elected president. However, the husband of the assassinated former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto was imprisoned from 1997 to 2004 on corruption charges unrelated to this affair.
The Pakistani president is one of his country's richest men, with a net worth estimated at 1.8 billion dollars.
The ongoing investigation in Paris into the May 8, 2002, terrorist attack that killed 11 DCN employees in Karachi may shed new light on the submarine purchase and his part in it.
The victims were in Karachi to complete work on the three submarines. According to French media, the magistrate looking into the bombing has rejected the theory that it was the work of al-Qaeda.
He is now considering the possibility that it was carried out by Pakistanis, either because only 85 per cent of the agreed kickbacks to politicians had been paid or because of negotiations carried out by French authorities to sell submarines to India, Pakistan's enemy.
In any case, some French parliamentarians are now demanding to be allowed to look into how the submarine contract with Pakistan was negotiated and executed.
Everything over in that part of the world is done under the table. You don’t do business there if you aren’t paying someone under the table. Even politicians.
in that part of the world? It is universal. The west tends to want it much quieter, but it is very naive to think US pols aren’t just as corrupt, as a class, as pakistanis. The major difference is US pols are expected to maintain much better appearances of ‘integrity.’
This is OLD news. Anyone who did not know he was on the take is ignorant. His nickname is Mr 10%. When his wife was Pres. he demanded 10% kickbacks on all the big contracts like this.
Of course Obama and Biden and Kerry trust him. Kerry was just over there promising 7.5 Billion $ in the next five years to fight the Jihadi’s. The only catch is that the Pakis have to use the money to buy stuff to fight the Jihadis and improve the lives of their people. Of course, sly Pakis just announced today a 1.4 Billion $ buy of advanced fighter jets from China. 10% of 1.4 billion is a nice 140 mil payday. And the Pakis are buying the jets to fight India, not the Jihadis. Details, details.
The audacity of dopes (Obama,Biden,Kerry)
One more point. The reason they bought from the Chicoms is twofold. We won’t sell them F-16’s (we won’t even give em the ones they paid for a decade ago) or advanced fighters, and second, the Chicoms will pay bribes without batting an eye. Win/win for the Pakis. Use our cash to buy Chinese fighters, and Mr 10% gets his cut to put in a Swiss Bank in case the Jihadi fight does not go so well. London is a better place to live than Islamabad anyways.
This guy was a known crook years ago. He was in exile for years before his wife was let back in to run for office. The only reason he is President is beacuse his wife was assassinated and he took over her party.
In his youth as the son of a rich landowner, Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari was known as a polo-playing playboy who had his own disco built on his father’s property. After wedding Benazir Bhutto in an arranged marriage, his illustriously corrupt career began: He was charged with the attempted murder of a British developer, on whose leg he and an accomplice were accused to have strapped a remote-controlled bomb before sending the guy into a bank to force him to withdraw $800,000.
Zardari was imprisoned for almost three years then released in time to become an investment minister in his wife’s cabinet, a post Bhutto created just for him, and a post both used to immense personal profit. Among the spoils: An $8 million, 355-acre estate in Surrrey, England, where Zardari frequented a pub he loved so much that, when he couldn’t buy it, had an identical replica built in the mansion’s basement. The property included an indoor swimming pool, a helipad, a stud farm, 220 acres of pasture and nine bedrooms Zardari decorated, for $1.5 million, with the help of two British interior decorators. That little deal pales in comparison with a promised $200 million payoff from Dassault Aviation, the French jet fighter manufacturer of Mirages, in exchange for a $4 billion deal with the Pakistani air force. Unfortunately for Zardari and Bhutto, that deal fell apart when, in 1996, Bhutto was booted out of government, twice, for corruption, and he was imprisoned again, for nine years, on charges including the murder of Bhutto’s brother. In all Pakistani authorities the Bhutto-Zardari axis managed to embezzle somewhere in the range of $1.5 billion.
But Zardari’s nickname stuck: “Mr. 10 Percent,” for his reputation as an exacting reaper of kickbacks.
Asked once about her fabulous, and fabulously inexplicable, wealth, Bhutto said: “I mean, what is poor and what is rich? If you mean, I am rich by European standards, do I have a billion dollars, or even a hundred million dollars, even half that, no, I do not. But if you mean I’m ordinary rich, yes, my father had three children studying at Harvard as undergraduates at the same time. But this wealth never meant anything to my brothers or me.”
Bhutto was assassinated last year, just as she was preparing to become prime minister for a third time. Zardari claims she named him her successor as head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the party Bhuttu’s father founded and she led until her death. On Friday, the PPP nominated Zardari its candidate for the presidency of Pakistan, the post Pervez Musharraf vacated last week to avoid impeachment.
Yeah I guess you’re right. We are just better at hiding it.
Naah, you don’t say!
Anyway, won’t make a ripple in the USofA, we’re fixated on that corrupt scumbag, Karzai. The guy with all the knives sticking outta his back.
And shows how putridly hypocritcal the French can be at times. Lecture others while conducting business as usual.
Hence the laughabiltiness of the sight of American pols like Biden lecturing and hectoring Karzai on corruption.
And you are correct, in essence we have a system of legalized bribery in America via PAC’s and campaign contributions that are ostensibly unrelated to the votes the elected may cast.
And the kicker, unspent campaign funds are like a personal piggy bank.
But you can’t blame only the American politicians, if the citizens of a republic wish to remain wilfully ignorant and buy whatever is put on the plate by pols, then......
clearly obama et al wanted karzai out. if you follow the rule ‘follow the money,’ one assumes it might be related to something we get no info on at all, such as control or influence over the opium trade. It is huge megamoney involved there, certainly enough to influence policy quietly.
what else does afghanistan have that involves money?
>>influence over the opium trade.
One of the prices or concession that Islamabad may have wrested from the US in recent negotiations was to have control of the heroin trade, as they did in the 80’s.
Karzai’s brother may not have wanted to give back to the Pakistanis what he has managed to control since the Talibs were ousted.
Hence the NYT story, the knives in Karzai’s back etc.
Actually they are getting new F-16s. Their first Block-50/52 was unveiled a few weeks back. They will get a bunch of new toys as well-including AMRAAMs. All with US tax-payers money.
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