Major gunrunning and graft trial opens in Paris [View All]

[Scurrilous]

Source: Associated Press

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"The son of a former French president, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and a tycoon with ties to Arizona's jet set were among the headliners Monday as 42 defendants went on trial in Paris, accused in a worldwide web of trafficked arms to Angola, money laundering and kickbacks.

Defense lawyers and Angola's government are trying to stop the show, however, arguing the trial has no right to go on.

Prosecutors allege that between 1993 and 1998, two key suspects — French magnate Pierre Falcone, a longtime resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Arkady Gaydamak, an Israeli businessman based in France at the time — organized a total of $791 million in Russian arms sales to Angola, a breach of French government rules.

Most of the other suspects are accused of receiving money or gifts, undeclared to tax authorities, from a company run by Falcone in exchange for political or commercial favors. Investigators say the corruption grew into a tangle of laundered money and parallel diplomacy that left a stain on France's relations with Africa.

Among the defendants who filed into a Paris courthouse Monday were icons of France's political elite — including late President Francois Mitterrand's eldest son, Jean-Christophe, and an economic adviser to current President Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Attali."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_arms_trafficking_trial