Mitterrand to pay bail

PARIS, France -- The son of the late French president Francois Mitterrand has decided to pay bail to end three weeks in a prison on arms trafficking charges.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand will pay five million francs ($716,400) bail, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Mitterrand, 54, had refused to post bail after a French court ruled last week that he could leave Paris's Sante prison, where he has been held since December 21, once he had paid the unusually high bail.

He is suspected of complicity in arms trafficking, influence peddling and embezzlement in relation to large sales of Russian arms to Angola in the early 1990s, but denies wrongdoing.

Lawyer Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi said Mitterrand's family had persuaded him to pay the bail and helped raise the money.

"He decided to get out because we persuaded him," Versini-Campinchi said, adding that he was due to be released on Wednesday or Thursday.

Mitterrand has admitted receiving $1.8 million in a Swiss bank account from arms dealer Pierre Falcone, who is also under investigation, but says the money was payment for helping with a legal, inter-government oil deal.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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