Germany holds key Elf suspect

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Prosecutors in a multi-million-dollar corruption case, involving France's former state-owned oil company, will have to wait to get their hands on a key defendant.

German police seized ex-Elf executive Alfred Sirven at Frankfurt airport as he stepped off a plane from the Philippines. A French aircraft was standing by to take him to Paris but he was prevented from boarding.

The move surprised French officials who were hoping the former fugitive would appear before judges in the French capital on Monday.

Sirven, 74, has been tried in absentia for the past two weeks in a case involving former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, Dumas' ex-mistress and four other people.

After a hearing at a Frankfurt court, judge Eva-Maria Wagner dismissed appeals for him to be transferred immediately to France and said formal extradition hearings would begin next week.

French authorities had insisted that since Sirven was willing to return to France, such proceedings were not necessary.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin dismissed suggestions that Paris had made a mistake by not waiting for a direct flight from Manila to France and sending Sirven instead to Germany.

"We didn't want to run the risk that he could disappear if forced to remain in the Philippines for 24 or 48 hours," Jospin said in Paris.

Sirven, a wartime Resistance fighter from Toulouse, had been on the run since 1997. He was arrested on Friday in the resort town of Tagaytay City in metropolitan Manila.

He was put on the plane to Frankfurt after missing an earlier direct flight from Manila to France.

A lawyer for Dumas expressed amazement that authorities had not foreseen the problem, which could delay Sirven's arrival by days or even weeks.

"We have placed ourselves in an astonishing and humiliating situation in some respects," lawyer Jean-Rene Farthouat told LCI television station.

An interior ministry spokesman in Berlin said after the hearing Sirven had been transferred to the Weiterstadt jail 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Frankfurt ahead of proceedings over his possible extradition.

Sirven's German lawyer, Susanne Wagner, said she was confident he would be extradited, though she had no idea when.

While German Government officials said the incident was a purely legal matter, it is not likely to help ties between Berlin and Paris already strained by conflicts over Europe.

Sirven was second in command at Elf, which has since been taken over by the Franco-Belgian oil group TotalFina.

One question is whether authorities in Germany want to question him over some 256 million francs ($37 million) allegedly paid by Elf in commissions during its 1992 purchase of the Leuna oil refinery in east Germany in 1992.

Charges that the Christian Democrat party of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl profited from the deal, which he and former French President Francois Mitterrand championed as a sign of Franco-German co-operation, have not been proven.

A spokesman for Germany's federal prosecutors said however they had no interest in interviewing Sirven.

French police say there are three international arrest warrants out for Sirven.

One alleged scandal involves the sale by French arms maker Thomson-CSF, now called Thales, of six Lafayette-class frigates to Taiwan for 16 billion francs ($2.08 billion).

Dumas was forced to resign as head of the Constitutional Council, France's top legal authority, over claims his former mistress received hefty payments to lobby him to approve the sale. The mistress was employed by Sirven at the time.

Dumas and the others are on trial for allegedly benefiting from the commissions paid out in the frigates deal.

In an interview with the French daily Le Parisien conducted shortly before his departure from Manila, Sirven said he was in poor health. He reiterated his innocence and his pledge not to betray his friends -- but threatened to name names if forced.

"My work in this firm was mixed with politics, and that is never good. I could hand over about a hundred names...but it doesn't interest me," he said.

"If I am forced to speak, it will be at the risk and peril of those who force me."

Reuters contributed to this report.

French fugitive deported from Manila
February 2, 2001
French ex-minister threatens court
January 31, 2001
Ex French minister denies fraud
January 30, 2001
Dumas rejects corruption charges
January 24, 2001
Peter Humi: The trial all France is talking about
January 22, 2001
Former French minister on trial
January 22, 2001

The Elf Aquitaine group
Roland Dumas

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.