Corruption Probe of Oil Giant Implicates Scores
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Judicial investigators in France have turned up millions of dollars in shadowy commissions, kickbacks and other under-the-table schemes in a just-completed, eight-year probe of the oil giant Elf Aquitaine that implicates scores of people, including presidential candidate Charles Pasqua.
Suspicions involving Pasqua, a former interior minister, are limited to alleged free air travel.
The investigation named 43 people, including top Elf executives, and was one of the most sweeping in modern France. However, a trial is not likely until 2003, long after this spring’s presidential election.
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