Fury over arms deal link to nurses' release

[Shinobi]

By Colin Randall in Paris
Published: 04 August 2007

Nicolas Sarkozy'spresidency has been embarrassed by disclosures linking France's high-profile involvement in the release of Bulgarian nurses who faced execution in Libya to an arms deal with Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

The French government confirmed yesterday that agreement had been reached on the sale of anti-tank missiles and a radio communications system to Libya. It is the first such contract between Libya and the West since the EU lifted an armaments embargo in 2004.

But the official announcement of the deal, said by the Libyans to be worth about £200m, came only after Col Gaddafi's son Saif claimed the contract negotiations were a crucial element in his country's decision to free the five nurses and one Palestinian doctor last month.

A blunt denial by M Sarkozy of any arms-for-medics deal failed to satisfy political opponents, though he sought to outwit his critics last night by announcing he was in favour of a parliamentary inquiry into the conditions of the contract, as demanded earlier in the day by François Hollande, the socialist party leader.

Mr Hollande wants a commission to establish "what is a regular trade agreement and what is a negotiation with a country that has held people hostages for eight years".

M Hollande asked how a democracy could tolerate "an arms deal being announced by Gaddafi's son." The affair is acutely sensitive for the President because his wife, Cécilia, played a significant role in the final stages of efforts to free the medics. She travelled twice to Libya and accompanied them to Bulgaria in a French presidential jet when they left prison.

Mme Sarkozy's first serious adventure as France's First Lady had already raised eyebrows after she was accused of taking credit for a happy outcome EU officials had worked for months to bring about.

The President's wife has subsequently been linked with further humanitarian initiatives. Some reports suggest she may become involved in ambitious French moves to persuade Burma to end the house arrest of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Under the terms of thearms deal, confirmed by the French defence ministry and the defence manufacturer Eads, Tripoli will purchase a number of French-built Milan anti-tank missiles. Eads said the contract was the product of 18 months of talks.

Saif Gaddafi, who played a leading role on the Libyan side of negotiations, said France also reached agreement with his father's regime on the joint manufacture of other military equipment, and to hold joint military exercises.

He told the French daily newspaper Le Monde a suggestion that France would intervene to defend Libya against threats to its security was also on the agenda. However, he was not sure whether this was covered in the final accord.

M Sarkozy's spokesman, David Martinon, insisted that no armaments deal was signed during the President's visit to Libya in the days following the ending of the nurses crisis.

But Le Monde pointed out that the denial did not exclude the possibility that military and manufacturing cooperation had been discussed. In a stern editorial it said that M Sarkozy was in breach of his much-vaunted promise of transparency and asked: "Who is telling the truth?"

Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said he wished France had informed its European partners of what it was doing.

The medics, who had been sentenced to death for deliberately infecting hundreds of children with HIV, received instant pardons from the Bulgarian President, Georgi Parvanov.

* Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia are reported to be taking a two-week summer break at a New Hampshire lakefront estate owned by a former Microsoft Corp executive. Elysée Palace officials confirmed yesterday the Sarkozys travelled to the US on a scheduled flight but an official French statement said only that the Sarkozys would be staying with friends "in a house on a lake about two hours by car from Boston".

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2833894.ece