France has charged 5 extra youngsters of former Gabonese president Omar Bongo in a long-running inquiry over ill-gotten wealth, a judicial supply stated Friday.
Omar Bongo, a detailed French ally, dominated the oil-rich state from 1967 till his dying in 2009, when he was succeeded by his son Ali Bongo Ondimba.
He had 54 youngsters.
French investigators suspect a number of members of the late president’s household to have knowingly benefitted from a fraudulently acquired real-estate empire price at the least 85 million euros ($87 million).
They’ve already charged 4 different grownup youngsters, in addition to a former Miss France, over receiving Parisian residences from the late president.
This implies at the least 9 half-sisters and half-brothers of Gabon’s present president have now been indicted within the 15-year-old case.
The siblings most lately charged, in June and July, embody Pascaline Bongo, 66, his eldest daughter and former director of his cupboard, Omar Denis Jr Bongo, 28, who can also be the grandson of Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Jeanne Matoua, 38, and Joseph Matoua, 40, the judicial supply stated, confirming a report by Africa Intelligence.
It was not instantly clear who the fifth baby charged since June was.
They had been charged with receiving misappropriated public funds, “lively and passive corruption”, cash laundering and “misuse of social property”.
Pascaline Bongo’s lawyer, Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, stated the costs concerned “authorized and factual anachronism”.
In keeping with info obtained by AFP, her shopper advised investigators in January 2020 that she owned a number of flats in stylish Parisian neighbourhoods, which her father had purchased in some unspecified time in the future between the Seventies and the Nineteen Nineties.
Pascaline Bongo, additionally a former international minister, was very near her father.
Omar Denis Jr Bongo’s legal professional, Jean-Marie Viala, rejected the allegations in opposition to his shopper.
– ‘Undue commissions’ –
The Bongo property empire contains residences and buildings in Paris and the Mediterranean metropolis of Good in addition to luxurious automobiles, a number of of which have been seized by French authorities.
In findings launched in February, an investigating decide decided that a lot of the cash for the purchases got here from “undue commissions” paid by French power agency Elf, now part of TotalEnergies, to take advantage of Gabon’s huge oil reserves.
French monetary investigators between March 25 and April 5 charged Grace, Betty, Arthur and Hermine Bongo with concealing embezzlement of public funds, corruption and misuse of property, paperwork seen by AFP confirmed.
All denied any data of the allegedly fraudulent origins of the property, a judicial supply stated on the time.
They advised investigators they’d obtained the properties — residences within the fifteenth and sixteenth districts of Paris — as items from their father between 1995 and 2004.
Prosecutors in early June stated a former Miss France, Sonia Rolland, had additionally been charged.
She was accused of receipt of embezzled public funds for accepting from Bongo in 2003 a Parisian house price 800,000 euros ($817,000).
Rolland, who was 22 on the time, recognised that she was naive however contested any wrongdoing, her lawyer advised AFP.
Contacted by AFP, Gabonese presidential spokesman Jessye Ella Ekogha declined to remark because the affair involved “neither the president… nor another member of the presidency”.
As a sitting head of state, President Ali Bongo Ondimba has immunity.
