Ֆրանսիայի հետախուզության նախկին ղեկավարը հերքում է իր մեղքը շորթման դատավարության ժամանակ

The former head of France's foreign intelligence agency, Bernard Bajolet, denied being implicated in any attempt at coercion on Thursday, November 6, in his trial for complicity in an alleged bid to extort a businessman.

The trial concerns an attempt to extort €15 million from Alain Dumenil, a French-Swiss dual national who was embroiled in a financial dispute with the intelligence service. Bajolet led the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) at the time, serving in the role from 2013 to 2017. He is also charged with arbitrarily infringing on an individual's freedom as a holder of public office, in a case brought by Dumenil.

The DGSE's 'insurance' fund

The DGSE has accused the businessman of defrauding the agency and owing it €15 million, including €3 million in interest.

Since the end of World War I, the French foreign intelligence service has managed a private asset fund that was entrusted to it by the state, so it can stay financially independent, even in the event of foreign occupation or the government's collapse. This is "insurance" in case of "state collapse or a prolonged crisis," said Bajolet, adding that these funds had been "mismanaged by the DGSE."

In the late 1990s, the intelligence services made unsuccessful investments in a company, and Dumenil was called in to help. It was then that the financial dispute erupted.

'Threats' at an airport in 2016

Dumenil was stopped by border police at Paris' biggest airport as he prepared to embark on a flight to Switzerland in March 2016. They brought him to the airport police station, where two plain-clothes DGSE agents told him he must reimburse the French state €15 million ($17.3 million).

The agents, whose identities are being kept secret, used "threats," according to a judicial source, notably by showing him "a photo album of himself and members of his family, to make him understand that he and his loved ones were being watched and followed." The businessman became enraged and announced he would file a complaint. The agents left.

Read more Subscribers only The French secret service and its 'war chest' caught in the nets of the justice system

'That's not at all what I authorised'

Bajolet, now 76, confirmed he had authorised the operation, but said that he had not given any order to subordinates "to use any kind of coercion." "Things didn't go as they should have," he acknowledged. Commenting on the behaviour of the DGSE agents, he said: "That's not at all what I authorised, that's not at all how I saw things."

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"Perhaps I acted a little hastily," he said, adding that he had "other concerns" at that time, during a period marked by several militant attacks in Europe, and particularly in France.

Meanwhile, Dumenil's lawyer, William Bourdon, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) before the hearing that the case was "emblematic of the privatisation of state resources by a former high-ranking civil servant to obtain an undue payment and settle scores." The trial is scheduled to last until Friday.

Le Monde with AFP

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