According to Le Monde, on January 19, 2001, Mr. Jean-Jacques Martini – actually one of the five deputy-directors of the French "Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire"(D.S.T.)- issued a note headlined " relations between the French businessman Iskandar Safa and the member of the European parliament Jean-Charles Marchiani" addressing it to the head of the Parisian Judiciary police [8]. The text published by the French newspaper mentions that money transfers were being effectuated in checks and cash, from accounts belonging to Mr. Safa. The apparent beneficiaries were people close to the ex-minister C. Pasqua and his trustful friend J.C. Marchiani. What were these payments made for? What was the origin of the money? By which coincidence the three men who, some years ago collaborated closely for the liberation of the hostages, are again gathered over that mysterious money circulation? The Judiciary police transmitted the document it had received to Paris prosecutor, Mr. Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, on January 22, along with the introductory letter of Mr. Martini and the 11 banking statements that the D.S.T. had produced.

Habitually, the Judiciary police should conduce its own inquiry prior to sending the file to the prosecutor. But the general context still impregnated with the remains of the Falcone affair [9] , as well as the quality of Mr. Marchiani – he is a member of the European Parliament-, convinced the J.P. to forward the dossier to justice right away.

On January 23, the prosecutor started a preliminary inquiry about funds’ movements mentioned by the DST. Five months later, on June 25, he launches a judiciary investigation against X [10], for "aggravated money laundering", which he confided to Judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez. In October and December, the men Mr. Safa used to distributing money (one of them was actually his chauffeur) are put under investigation. They were forbidden from contacting Mr. Safa, who will be summoned on December 17 to the judge’s office, along with Mr. Marchiani and his wife Christiane, Mr. Charles Pasqua [11] – presently running for President - and his aide Mrs. Marie-Danièle Faure.

On December 12, the public prosecutor’s department submitted to Mrs. Prévost-Desprez an additional request extending the prosecution to

"Aggravated influence traffic" purporting the conditions wherein Mr. Iskandar Safa has obtained in 1999 the French nationality. And since the word "laundering" suggests that the concerned funds are possibly the fruit of an infraction, the link was to be underlined between eventual ransom embezzlement and the remitted payments in cash ^[12].

How the money was funneled

Between 1993 and 1995, a peculiar traffic was going on in the French Interior Ministry. A man, of Middle-East origin, used to bring often two envelopes full of money to the Secretary of Mr. Pasqua as well as to his adviser Mr. Marchiani. It was Mr. Mohamed Al Sayes, the chauffeur of Iskandar Safa, who thus confessed to the investigators his visits to the Place Beauvau ^[13] . He used to pick up these sums in cash at the Champs-Elysées’s branch of the CCF (i.e. Crédit Commercial de France). The money was transferred from a particular account of I. Safa in the CCF of Geneva. Some of these withdrawals amounted to 400 000 francs. Once he got the money, the chauffeur gave it to an accomplice – probably Isam Abbas- whose task was to slip it into the envelopes. Thus, it is said that between 1995 and 2000, no less than 30 million francs had to be withdrawn this way and to go to varied addressees, Safa included [14].

According to other estimations close to the financial brigade [15], in the period between December 1995 and January 2001, Al Sayes and Abbas – both employed by Safa and arrested in October and December 2001- withdrew 13,9 million francs in cash from the aforementioned accounts. Other sums have been withdrawn in checks from another account of Safa in the Crédit Lyonnais. The DST charges that since more than ten years, Mr. Marchiani was receiving from Mr. Safa, two or three weekly payments, each one amounting to about 300 000 francs [16].

For the DST, the money from the Swiss account is part of the ransom the French state paid for the hostages in Lebanon, but was retained by the negotiators. It has been noticed also that Mrs. Marie-Danièle Faure, Marchiani’s secretary at the association France-Orient [17], used to receive the envelopes from the chauffeur’s hands ^[18] . Some of the checks destined to Mr. Marchiani were withdrawn from a Credit Lyonnais’ account. But in December 2000, Mr. Iskandar Safa hastened to close this account, in the wake of the Falcone affair that had apparently struck both men with panic [19] .

Crossing points

What seems the most amazing in this affair concerns the coincidence that gathers almost the same protagonists and the same networks close to Mr. Charles Pasqua. Otherwise, nearly the same questions that puzzled the investigators and the observers during the Falcone affair are to be found here as well. Nearly, but not all- that has to be underlined.

Like in the investigation about the arms deals with Angola, the former prefect J.C. Marchiani, his wife, and Mr. Pasqua happen to be directly threatened by this new affair. No wonder, beyond the long friendship between the two men, a number of associations usually put into orbit by Pasqua’s associates and partners in the RPF (i.e. Rassemblement pour la France), have been at varied times the object of judiciary investigations. The idea that some bridges link them to each other may sound plausible to the prosecution, so that it will not be astounding if the judge is tempted to transfer some pieces from a file to another, in order to fill the gaps in his inquiry or to find some explanation to unanswered questions.

Thus, judge Prévost-Desprez may be much interested in inquiring about some associations she had already encountered when she was investigating about arms smuggling. The association France-Orient, where according to the DST, Mr. Marchiani or his secretary Marie-Danièle Faure, used to receive the money envelopes, is close to another called AFAO (i.e. France Afrique Orient). Mr. Pasqua was the latter’s deputy-president. And when it has been dissolved at the end of 2000, the greatest part of its funds went to France-Orient. Now, one must keep in mind that the inquiry about arms smuggling with Angola made evidence of a sum of 1.5 million francs that had been remitted to the AFAO in 1996. And it was the weapons company Brenco, headed by Pierre Falcone, which funneled the money. Moreover, the same association used to share its offices with "Demain la France"- a movement that Mr. Pasqua has created in an attempt to unify the opponents to Amsterdam treaty.

Here, two remarks are noteworthy: first, the diplomatic adviser of Mr. Pasqua, Bernard Guillet, also member of the administration board in both associations, has been put under judiciary investigation in the current affair related to Safa. And second, it seems that some of the offices occupied by Mr. Pasqua and Marchiani political partners and collaborators, boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg in Paris, belong actually to Iskandar Safa.

The Lebanese adventure

In the book entitled " la décennie Mitterand", Iskandar Safa confessed to Pierre Favier and Michel-Martin Rolland: "We have done a team work. I was well acquainted with Pasqua and Chirac (the prime minister) as well as with their entourage. I have just put at their service my numerous contacts in Lebanon, in Syria and most of all in Iran" [20]. According to the same source, Iskandar was then using a little private plane [21] for shuttling between Paris and some Middle-East capitals. The two authors describe these missions this way: " Iskandar Safa does 80% of Jean-Charles Marchiani’s work, who achieves 80% of Charles Pasqua’s job, who accomplishes 80% of Jacques Chirac’s."

Marchiani himself acknowledges to the AFP that he has " a lot of esteem for Iskandar Safa", and he adds: " I have known him since about twenty years, when I was managing the Meridien chain of hotels". Apparently, their relationship never faltered since then, for when in 1986 Mr. Pasqua appointed the former SDECE-agent (Marchiani) [22] as head of the operations aiming at liberating the French hostages in Lebanon, it was towards Safa that the latter turned.

" I accepted out of patriotism, as a Lebanese, and because it was a human problem also. I was horrified that some French citizens could thus be hijacked. Anyway, it was not for money", said Iskandar Safa in an interview with Le Monde [23] . However, many varied versions about what happened then make it hard to reach a conclusive truth. One witness confessed to a French newspaper that Iskandar Safa was " indubitably the key-man, who had his ways into all the communities, Israel and the Mossad included"[24] . According to this witness who required anonymity, the means of the Marchiani team were then unlimited and the backing with Matignon’s special funds [25]  was granted. " We were a dozen of men, and everything was being planned from Triacorp, Safa’s company. For reasons of discretion and flexibility, it was Triacorp that funded the whole logistic. It will thus serve as a screen-company for the French government. Safa himself has funneled several dozens of million francs." The same witness expressed his doubts over the fact that France would ever have paid its Eurodif debt to Iran [26] , without the apparition of the hostages’ affair. He suggested that it was actually the first condition for their release. " What is sure", he says, " is that towards the end of 1986, a first portion amounting to $300 million was being released"[27].

Was there any ransom?

On January 4, the former office chief of Mr. Chirac at Matignon (1986-1988), Maurice Ulrich, presently an Elysée adviser [28], declares that the liberation of the hostages" has never been subjected to any ransom paid by the French state". He labels "nonsense" the declaration of Christian Prouteau, ex-chief of the Elysée anti-terrorist cell [29], to Le Parisien about Mitterand being aware of a ransom paid for the hostages [30]. Prouteau emphasized that he informed the former President of the affair himself, adding that he was not shocked that such a thing might happen.

Moreover, in 1987 the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa has mentioned that $3 million were being paid to the hijackers. Several French papers have echoed the same information, albeit the government has always denied it.

For Mr. Marchiani, what some people call "ransom" was nothing but the settlement of the Eurodif affair. He confirmed that at the end of April 1988, he accompanied Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, then treasury director, to Geneva. They met the envoys of the Iranian Finance Ministry with whom they had to negotiate the settlement of the debt. "These commitments that actually allowed the liberation of the hostages, have been honored by two successive governments", says Mr. Marchiani [31].

Let’s keep in mind that prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran has lent $ 1 billion to France, in order to be equipped with a nuclear program. But the new regime put an end to that cooperation, and the French companies involved with Eurodif refused to pay back the debt. According to Christian Prouteau, it was the government Chirac, during the first cohabitation that accepted to pay back the Iranians.

Some questions remain however unanswered:

Was it a coincidence that the first payments made by Safa to Mr. Pasqua’s collaborators started in 1989, the year following the liberation of the hostages?

Why should Safa ever make such payments? Why were they made to the same persons? What would he get in return?

What was the role of the Iranian Manucher Ghorbanifar, the ex-informer of the " Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure"(DGSE) and the DST in this affair? Some people say that he was actually the source of the DST’s note. It is also believed that he accompanied Marchiani during his meetings with the Iranian deputy-Minister of Foreign Affairs. What about his complaining that he has not been fairly paid for his efforts in the hostages’ crisis? Had he really threatened to have his revenge against Mr. Jacques Chirac, as suggests Le Canard Enchainé [32] in one of its recent issues? Has he gone to the extent of arranging his "confession" to the DST so that it suits his desire for revenge? ^[33]

Notes: