Investigation opened into party financing of ex-minister

The French right-wing MEP and former interior minister, Mr Charles Pasqua, is under investigation for alleged illegal party financing.

Mr Pasqua (74), an ally of Fianna Fail in the European Parliament, is a scrappy, anti-EU, anti-immigrant, law-and-order politician who hoped to stand in next year's presidential election.

Now two magistrates are delving into accounts at Mr Pasqua's Rally for France (RPF), as well as the financing of his 1999 European election campaign.

Mr Pasqua is president of the Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) group in the European Parliament, of which six Fianna Fail MEPs are members. He is a senator, president of the Hauts-de-Seine local government and a city councillor in the Paris suburb of Neuilly.

Allegations against him spring from the "Angola-gate" scandal, in which French officials are believed to have abetted the sale of $633 million-worth of surplus Russian weapons to Angola in 1993 and 1994, in violation of a UN embargo. Mr Jean-Christophe Mitterr and, the son of the late president, spent three weeks in prison in connection with the same scandal last winter and is still under investigation.

Mr Pasqua denies that his party was funded by Brenco, the company which sold the weapons, or the Angolan government.

But in July 1996 Brenco transferred 1.5 million francs (£180,072) to the now defunct Association FranceAfriqueOrient.

Mr Pasqua was the vice-president of the association, and it used the address of his political movement.

One of his close associates, Mr Jean-Charles Marchiani MEP, reportedly received $450,000 from the Angolan arms sale.

Mr Pasqua's home and office were searched last November. But suspicions against him reached a new pitch when a former aide, Ms Sabine de la Laurencie, told Le Figaro that she carried a briefcase full of cash at the request of Mr Pasqua's diplomatic adviser, Mr Bernard Guillet, who is formally under investigation.

"I went to Geneva, where I met someone I didn't know at the airport," Ms de la Laurencie said.

"He gave me a briefcase that was locked with a code. When I got back to Paris I asked Mr Guillet what was in it and he said it was none of my business."

According to Ms de la Laurencie, an Iraqi billionaire who lives in London, Mr Nad hmi Auchi, saw Mr Guillet several times a year to give him money for the RPF.

A French judge has issued a warrant for Mr Auchi's arrest in connection with the Elf oil company corruption scandal.

In a parallel inquiry, judges believe that two cheques totalling 7.5 million francs (£900,360) contributed by Ms Marthe Mondoloni to Mr Pas qua's 1999 European campaign were laundered money from the sale of a casino in the French Alps. Ms Mondoloni, who like Mr Pasqua is Corsican, runs the lottery in the west African country of Gabon.