Ex-Mitterrand aide quizzed

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French magistrates have placed a top aide to late President Francois Mitterrand under investigation over allegations of arms trafficking to Angola.

The inquiry widens the web of alleged scandal to another high-ranked politician.

Jacques Attali, who was Mitterrand's adviser for 10 years, joins the president's son Jean-Christophe Mitterrand as a suspect in the "Angolagate" affair, one of a series of corruption probes that have sent shocks through French political life.

Attali, who was forced to resign as President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1993 amid charges of lavish spending and intellectual arrogance, is formally suspected of influence peddling and embezzlement.

His lawyers said the allegations were completely unfounded.

Judicial sources said magistrates would focus on allegations that up to 1.5 million francs ($213,000) was paid to a consulting company belonging to Attali by the arms dealer Pierre Falcone, who has been jailed while under investigation in the affair.

Under French law, such investigations can, but do not automatically, lead to the pressing of charges and trial.

Judicial sources said Attali had told judges the money had been used to finance studies on setting up a "microcredit" scheme in Angola, a southwest African state riven by 25 years of civil war.

Magistrates believe the money may be linked to suspected illicit payments allegedly used as a bribe to ensure a sale of $550 million worth of Russian arms to Angola in the early 1990s.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand has admitted receiving $1.8 million from Falcone in a Swiss bank account.

Mitterrand says the payment was for a legal inter-governmental oil deal and denies the charges against him.

A familiar face in French political life, Attali served from 1981 to 1991 as a close aide to Francois Mitterrand, who served 14-years as Socialist president. He died in 1996.

A string of trials or investigations in connection to alleged slush funds and corruption scams at the formerly state-run Elf oil company have since cast a shadow over Mitterrand's presidential years.

Ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas is on trial on corruption charges along with his former lover and several Elf executives, including Alfred Sirven, who has was recently captured after more than three years on the run from the French courts.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, who worked as African affairs adviser to his father at the Elysee presidential palace from 1986-1992, was jailed for three weeks after the Angola arms probe began in December.

Reuters contributed to this report.

French court upholds Mitterrand charge
February 23, 2001
Mitterrand questioned over arms sales
January 31, 2001
Germans hope to quiz Elf fugitive
February 5, 2001
Sirven contacts deny wrongdoing
February 8, 2001
Ex French minister denies fraud
January 30, 2001

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