A former executive at Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin
paid bribes of more than Can$160 million (US$159 million) to Saadi
Gaddafi authorities alleged in documents released Friday.
The graft was outlined in an affidavit used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to obtain a warrant to search the company’s Montreal headquarters in April 2012 at the start of a sweeping criminal investigation.
The nearly 60-page document was obtained by the daily Globe and Mail and two other newspapers that sued for access to the confidential information.
SNC-Lavalin said in a statement the affidavit contains data it voluntarily provided to authorities in March 2012, but also “some information of which we were not previously aware.”
The document shows the monies were used by the dictator’s third-born son, Saadi Gaddafi, to buy luxury yachts and pay his condominium fees in Toronto.
“It is alleged that these funds were paid to him as a reward for influencing the awarding of contracts,” said the affidavit.
The probe reportedly looked as far back as 2001 when SNC-Lavalin signed major contracts with the Libyan government for work on the ambitious Great Man Made River project.
Over the next decade, SNC-Lavalin won several other contracts in Libya including for a jail and an airport.
The alleged mastermind behind the plot, Riadh Ben Aissa, was executive vice president of the firm’s construction arm before he was fired in February 2012 along with Stephane Roy, the vice president in charge of finances.
Ben Aissa has been in a Swiss jail since his arrest in April 2012.
He was charged in November with money laundering, after mysterious payments were tracked from SNC-Lavalin to Swiss bank accounts controlled by Ben Aissa.
Police also said in the affidavit that Roy may have been an accomplice in an alleged scheme to sneak Saadi Gaddafi and family into Mexico with false documents at the height of pro-democracy protests in Libya in 2011.
Roy has not been charged, but a Canadian woman he hired, along with a Danish citizen and two Mexicans were charged by Mexican authorities last January with attempted trafficking of undocumented people, organized crime and falsifying official documents.
Source - AFP
The graft was outlined in an affidavit used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to obtain a warrant to search the company’s Montreal headquarters in April 2012 at the start of a sweeping criminal investigation.
The nearly 60-page document was obtained by the daily Globe and Mail and two other newspapers that sued for access to the confidential information.
SNC-Lavalin said in a statement the affidavit contains data it voluntarily provided to authorities in March 2012, but also “some information of which we were not previously aware.”
The document shows the monies were used by the dictator’s third-born son, Saadi Gaddafi, to buy luxury yachts and pay his condominium fees in Toronto.
“It is alleged that these funds were paid to him as a reward for influencing the awarding of contracts,” said the affidavit.
The probe reportedly looked as far back as 2001 when SNC-Lavalin signed major contracts with the Libyan government for work on the ambitious Great Man Made River project.
Over the next decade, SNC-Lavalin won several other contracts in Libya including for a jail and an airport.
The alleged mastermind behind the plot, Riadh Ben Aissa, was executive vice president of the firm’s construction arm before he was fired in February 2012 along with Stephane Roy, the vice president in charge of finances.
Ben Aissa has been in a Swiss jail since his arrest in April 2012.
He was charged in November with money laundering, after mysterious payments were tracked from SNC-Lavalin to Swiss bank accounts controlled by Ben Aissa.
Police also said in the affidavit that Roy may have been an accomplice in an alleged scheme to sneak Saadi Gaddafi and family into Mexico with false documents at the height of pro-democracy protests in Libya in 2011.
Roy has not been charged, but a Canadian woman he hired, along with a Danish citizen and two Mexicans were charged by Mexican authorities last January with attempted trafficking of undocumented people, organized crime and falsifying official documents.
Source - AFP
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