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CASE KARACHI: Ziad Takieddine charged and remanded in custody

 

Already indicted in the financial aspect of the Affair Karachi, the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine now sleeps in prison, jailed Friday night because justice is suspected of wanting to flee France.

The intermediary weapons had been placed in custody Thursday morning by police who suspect him of having planned to evade justice by seeking to obtain his passport diplomatic Dominican Republic.

At the beginning of the new legal troubles Takieddine a new search conducted on April 11, this time in his luxurious home in Paris Avenue Georges Mandel (XVI). On this occasion, the police get their hands on an email suggesting that Mr. Takieddine would be to issue this document issued in January 2013, he would have ordered at $ 200,000.

Particularly in the light of this discovery, the Paris prosecutor's office opened a criminal investigation in early May for "corruption of foreign public officials" and "fraud", entrusted to two judges instructing the financial aspect of the Karachi affair, Renaud van Ruymbeke and Roger Le Loire.

In this procedure are to be joined two other instructions aimed Takieddine, this time for "tax evasion" and "fraudulent insolvency organization."

Friday brought the businessmen was presented to the magistrates who indicted for all these leaders, before Mr. Takieddine is remanded in custody, according to a judicial source.

For investigators, it is to understand why Mr. Takieddine sought the identity document, when he was not allowed to leave the country, and how he was able to finance the purchase, while the majority of its goods é , ty seized in Karachi investigation.

Contacted by AFP, one of his lawyers, Francis Vuillemin, said Friday morning that his client had never intended to leave the country and that he had always respected the judicial review which they are ordered.

"The project of a passport from the Dominican Republic has nothing to do with the preparation of a leak but fits so completely incidental in the context of investments Ziad Takieddine wanted to do in the Dominican Republic from France and to encourage them and opening a bank account in this country for this purpose, "said Mr. Vuillemin. 

"Ziad Takieddine is absolutely not + bought + a passport or sought to leave French territory. He simply tried, from France, to continue to work for a living, and in the scrupulous judicial review which prohibits the international businessman traveling respect, "- he continued.

Two other men, including one U.S. citizen, were arrested in this investigation. Believed to have played a role in the process of obtaining this false document, they were also indicted Friday and placed under judicial control .

Central figure in the Karachi affair, Mr. Takieddine has repeatedly been heard by judges van Ruymbeke and the Loire, which have in particular investigated for the misuse of corporate assets. In this sprawling record, the two magistrates investigating whether the commissions paid for arms contracts that could have legally collected Takieddine and another Lebanese businessman, could fuel presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur in 1995, through a system of illegal kickbacks.

Takieddine has repeatedly called in vain to get his passport to go to visit his family in Britain and Lebanon.

In July 2012, the judges and the Loire van Ruymbeke had been asked to open for tax evasion investigation against Mr. Takieddine, whose wealth is estimated at tens of millions of euros.

Takieddine name also appears in a criminal investigation in November 2012, including "money laundering and corruption" in connection with his arrest in March 2011 at the Le Bourget airport, while returning from Libya by plane with 1.5 million in cash.

AFP