{"id":13834,"date":"2022-04-27T10:53:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T02:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13834"},"modified":"2022-04-27T10:53:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T02:53:07","slug":"french-firm-thales-charged-with-bribery-over-najib-era-submarine-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13834","title":{"rendered":"French firm Thales charged with bribery over Najib-era submarine deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paris, April 27<\/strong> — A French judge has charged the defence group Thales with complicity in bribery over a 2002 sale of submarines to Malaysia, sources close to the inquiry told AFP on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-running case into alleged kickbacks was opened in 2010 and eventually caught up with former prime minister Najib Razak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Najib was defence minister when the deal was signed to buy two Scorpene-class submarines and one Agosta submarine from French naval dockyards unit DCN, now part of Thales, in a deal worth US$1.2 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Najib\u2019s associate Abdul Razak Baginda acted as an adviser on the deal, and he is accused of disguising the kickback of more than 114 million euros (US$121 million at the present-day exchange rate) as \u201cconsulting work\u201d by a firm in which he was the largest shareholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The money was then allegedly given to Najib, who has faced a series of graft cases since his Barisan Nasional coalition was voted out in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Thales\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Razak Baginda was charged in France in 2017, while Najib has been questioned by anti-graft investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total nine defendants, including Thales, have been charged in France and the investigations were closed in January 2022, the sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also include Philippe Japiot, former chairman of the French naval dockyards unit DCN International, and Jean-Paul Perrier, a former Thales chief executive, along with two other former executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four deny any wrongdoing and Putrajaya has said the contract was free of corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contacted by AFP, Thales said, \u201cit strongly contests these allegations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors from France\u2019s PNF financial crimes office will now consider any further requests to the judge, who will have a final say on whether the case goes to trial, though an appeal was already filed in May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by AFP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paris, April 27 — A French judge has charged the defence group Thales with complicity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-nation"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",1068,707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1-300x199.png",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1-768x508.png",640,423,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1-1024x678.png",640,424,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",1068,707,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",1068,707,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",1068,707,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",1024,678,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/scorpene-malaysia-bernama-1068x707-1.png",718,475,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Crime<\/a> Nation<\/a>","tag_info":"Nation","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13836,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13834\/revisions\/13836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}