The eldest daughter of the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba, suspected of passive corruption of a foreign public official in the early 2000s, was acquitted this Monday April 22 by the Paris criminal court
According to the French press which is making the most of it, the French engineering company Egis and three of its former executives, as well as the businessman Franck Ping and the lawyer Danyèle Palazo-Gauthier, who appeared in early 2024, alongside the sister of the deposed president, were all acquitted by the Paris criminal court.
Pascaline Bongo, 68, who proclaimed her innocence and rejected the accusations of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), was suspected of having agreed to intervene with the National Agency for Major Works, through her company Sift, in favor of of Egis Route in the award of public contracts once morest the promise of five (5) billion CFA Francs in retrocommissions.
The court ruled that in the functions she held at the time as high personal representative of the President of the Republic, “she did not have the power to award the contract in question and that at most, her functions and her real or supposed fraternal proximity to the President of the Republic might have allowed her to use her influence”.
However, the judge considered, “that no element of the file allows us to demonstrate an intervention in this sense and, above all, the offense of trading in influence of a foreign public official did not exist at the time of the facts”explained the president of the court while delivering the deliberations.
Corruption is therefore not characterized, Pascaline Bongo is acquitted. Just like her, her lawyer and friend Danyèle Palazo-Gauthier, the businessman Franck Ping and the executives of Egis Route were all released.
However, according to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office, Egis Route wanted to use the influence of the Bongo’s eldest daughter to obtain the contract from the National Agency for Major Works. The Prosecutor’s Office has ten (10) days to appeal. The latter had requested three (3) years in prison once morest her, one (1) of which was closed.
He also requested suspended prison sentences and fines once morest all the other defendants: Egis Route, three (3) of its former executives, Pascaline Bongo’s former lawyer, as well as businessman Franck Ping , son of Jean Ping.
According to colleagues from Rfi, the defendants’ lawyers all pleaded for the release of their clients under the argument that Egis, at the time, had ultimately not obtained any road contract in Gabon.
Alph’-Willem Eslie
2024-04-22 18:02:51
#Relaxation #Pascaline #Mferri #Bongo #Ondimba #Paris
