French officials jailed over Angolagate

PARIS, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A French court has sentenced two businessmen to six-year jail terms for orchestrating the illicit trafficking of weapons to Angola.

Dubbed Angolagate, the case has rocked the foundations of the political establishment in Paris because of its involvement of a number of high level figures, including senior French officials.

The two businessmen sentenced were Arkadi Gaydamak, a Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, and his French associate Pierre-Joseph Falcone on charges that they helped arrange shipments of $790 million worth of weapons to Angola in the mid-1990s.

Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua also received a prison sentence, while several of the 42 defendants were given suspended sentences.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of the late French Socialist president, for example, was given a two-year suspended sentence.

Only six of the defendants were cleared, and the sentences were stiffer than those requested by the prosecution.

Falcone, Gaydamak and Pasqua have said they will quickly appeal the verdict. But Pasqua, a conservative, has gone on the offensive, arguing that other government officials, including Presidents Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac also knew about the deal.

The deal flouted an international embargo with the French network shipping arms to Angola during its civil war in the 1990s.

The Angolan government has said it is "stupefied" by the convictions of French citizens who "in opportune time" had helped the African county to guarantee its democratic process.

A statement issued by the government in Angola said the verdict had not proven any illegal trade of arms as the weapons were neither manufactured in France nor transported through French territory.

"At the time, there was not any international embargo against the purchase of arms by the legitimate government of Angola, and the weapons were acquired by Angola in a perfectly legal business between the two sovereign states," the statement said.

It said the court procedure in Paris was "unbalanced and unfair" and criticized "the abusive way in which the country's name was repeatedly used in the process."

The Angolan civil war pit the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola -- the main opposition party today -- against the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which has long dominated the country.

The trial in Paris heard that the MPLA was fuelled by a Soviet-made arsenal including 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters and six warships, worth a total of $790 million.

No Angolans were among the 42 defendants, although the prosecution argued that at least 30 officials, including President Dos Santos, were given robust bribes.

Pasqua, also, is demanding that Chirac's successor, current President Nicolas Sarkozy, open secret government files to reveal all of France's arms transactions.