Killing of French Engineers working on Submarine Project – Twist in the story?
This is the story of involvement of top officials both from Pakistan & France in this deal. Its the story about kickbacks and commissions. It is believed that this has not been done by any Al-Qaeda or terrorist organizations, but by the officials from Pakistan Army & Intelligence in combination of former minister Mr. Asif Ali Zardari ( Current President ).
[ Story From Express news 20th June 2009 Link Here ]
Same story has been published in Daily News as follows
French Probe gives Karachi Killings a New Twist
Claims denial of commission led to 11 engineers massacre; Balladur, Sarkozy reject charge
CHERBOURG, France: A probe into the 2002 killing of 11 French engineers in Pakistan is focusing on France’s failure to pay a commission for the sale of submarines to Pakistan, a lawyer for the victims’ families said on Thursday.
The lawyer, Olivier Morice, said former president Jacques Chirac and former prime minister Edouard Balladur had been mentioned in the decision to halt the payments.Morice spoke after two French anti-terrorist investigating magistrates had met with families of the engineers killed in the attack.
A car packed with explosives was driven into a minibus carrying the Frenchmen, all engineers working for a French state firm, DCN, which was building submarines for Pakistan. The 11 engineers and three Pakistanis were killed.
Investigators had been looking into an al-Qaeda link to the attack. But Morice told AFP: “The al-Qaeda track has been totally abandoned. The motive for the attack appears linked to the non-payment of commissions.”
He said the payments were stopped when Chirac became president in 1995 because he wanted to stop part of the money financing the campaign of Balladur, who was his political rival on the French right at the time.
|
|
Magali Drouet, the daughter of one of the men killed, quoted one of the anti-terrorist judges, Marc Trevidic, as telling the families that this theory was ‘cruelly logical’. She added according to this scenario, the attack was carried out because the special payments were not made by France to Asif Ali Zardari, who is now Pakistan’s president but was a minister at the time.
High-ranking politicians would likely be called in to testify, said Morice. Details of the payments emerged in 2008 as part of an investigation into French arms sales. Police seized documents from the French firm, now known as DCNS, which discussed the companies used to pay fees in connection with arms sales.
One unsigned document spoke of Pakistan intelligence services using Islamist militants. It claimed that the Karachi attack was carried out with complicity of rogue elements in the Pakistani law enforcement agencies.
The document, which has been added to the case file, said those who employed the Islamist group had financial aims. It involved obtaining the payment of unpaid commissions linked to the sale of French submarines to Pakistan in 1994, it said.
A French investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that ‘new elements’ had been found in the inquiry, but declined to give details. Balladur, head of the French government before Chirac became president, said Thursday that he knew of nothing improper in the submarine deals. “There were indeed agreements made with the Pakistani government,” he told French television. “To my knowledge, all of it was perfectly regular. I have nothing else to add.”
Two alleged members of al-Qaeda-linked group Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi were found guilty by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in 2003 over the Karachi attack. But the Sindh High Court last month acquitted the pair, saying in an order that the prosecution has failed to prove the case against the appellants beyond any reasonable doubt.
President Nicolas Sarkozy was Balladur’s campaign manager in the ballot and was also budget minister when the lucrative sales contract for the French Agosta submarines was signed.
Sarkozy rejected the magistrates’ suspicions. “Listen, this is ridiculous,” he told reporters at a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels. “This is grotesque … We have to respect the grief of the families. Who would ever believe such a tale?” he added.
Source: Daily News 20th June 2009
-
My Opinion
Well I don’t know about the authenticity of this story, but what really concerns me here is the fact that the issue of this much importance had been put under carpet.
Adding insult to injury, The proposed culprits has been released by the court later due the lack and non-seriousness of facts against them.
Even if there is nothing in this story, still I wonder, how this incident could be happened, and went to the darks of history same as other cases.
We also need to keep the point in notice, that after this incident, Military has been directly involved in power, I wonder what made them incapable to bring those culprits to the Justice? Are they just expert in just taking over their own country?
This story also named Asif Ali Zardari being one of the beneficiary in this deal. People will start pointed finger against him, but who will be punishing those who facilitated him to acquire the supreme post of the country through NRO etc?
POSSIBLY RELATED POSTS:
- Are French Bribes Stopping Zardari Government From Buying German Submarines?
- Zaid Hamid Alerts: The French-German Tussle in Pakistan
- UAE Establishes a French Military Base on its Soil
- Picture Story – Gaza Genocide Massacre Aftermath
- Understanding The EU Project
- French Niqab Ban: A Clash of Civilisations
- Another Mosque Burnt in France
- $2,000 For A Dead Afghan Child, $100,000 for any American Who Died Killing it
- CIA’s Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project: Mapping the Global Future
- Washington Puts Pressure on India, Which Is Good, But CIA is Killing Pro-Pakistan Tribesmen
