President Nicolas Sarkozy is amidst a high-profile scandal in the run-up to France’s presidential election.

The Liberation newspaper has obtained the minutes of the interrogation of a former Defence Ministry official who said that Paris secured a contract for building submarines for Pakistan in the 1990s.

Sarkozy was then the Minister for the Budget, and authorized the creation of two offshore companies in Luxembourg that were used by Islamabad and Paris to exchange the sub construction commission charges.

Almost 200 million Franks were sent into the offshore bank accounts in two years. The investigation is now trying to find out what that money was eventually used for.

Back in 2010, Sarkozy claimed he knew nothing of those companies. But his opponents are certain that the then French Minister for the Budget could not be unaware of the money remittance.

Source