A former head of French Intelligence charged
Bernard Bajolet, former Director General of External Security, allegedly abused his power to extort a Franco-Swiss businessman.
The former Director General of External Security (DGSE) Bernard Bajolet was indicted in October for complicity in attempted extortion against a Franco-Swiss businessman, who accuses the intelligence service of having used of coercion to demand money from him in 2016, AFP learned on Wednesday from a source familiar with the matter.
Bernard Bajolet, at the head of the DGSE from April 2013 to May 2017 before retiring, was also indicted for arbitrary interference with individual freedom by a person holding public authority, added this source, confirming information from the newspaper Le Monde.
In March 2016, Alain Duménil, a 73-year-old Franco-Swiss businessman who appears in a plethora of legal cases and commercial disputes relating to the management of his businesses in France and Switzerland, is preparing to embark on a flight leaving for Geneva at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, according to the account of the source close to the file.
At the Air France counter, it is checked by two officials from the Border Police. After asking him for his passport, they claim a more thorough check and invite him to follow him to a police station.
Two of the 7,000 agents of the DGSE, in civilian clothes, enter the room, according to the same source.
Presenting themselves as “the State”, they tell him that he must reimburse 15 million euros to France. To do this, he must tell his counsel to get in touch with a lawyer to set the terms that will allow him to pay off his debt.
Family pictures
To support their request, they show him photos of him and his family, taken in England and Switzerland. According to Alain Duménil, they would have made threats.
The interview lasts a few minutes, the businessman loses his temper and announces that he is filing a complaint. Agents disappear.
In October 2022, Bernard Bajolet was heard and indicted. He explains to the investigating judges that he validated the principle of an interview at the airport but did not go into the details of its implementation.
The names of the services and people in charge of this file, as well as those of the agents who conducted the interview will never be disclosed, protected by defense secrecy.
For Bernard Bajolet, the objective was a short and unconstrained contact with a man considered by the institution to be elusive and with whom many previous contact attempts have failed.
“This is a long-awaited step forward, which is not yet a final outcome, but which very clearly calls into question the practices of the DGSE in the context of the handling of this case”, declared to the AFP Me Nicolas Huc-Morel and William Bourdon, lawyers for Alain Dumenil.
Three million interest
The purpose of the current investigation in Bobigny is to determine the legal framework of the control, the degree of constraint exerted by the various agents and the possible threats.
Since the end of the First World War, the DGSE has managed a “private heritage” entrusted by the State.
At the end of the 1990s, the DGSE had made unsuccessful investments in a company. In the early 2000s, in an exchange of securities, Alain Duménil became the majority shareholder in this company and sold shares in his holding company to the DGSE.
He then transferred all of the shares in the holding company held by the DGSE to three other companies that he also owned. The holding is put into compulsory liquidation.
In the resulting legal proceedings, the businessman was indicted in November 2016 for bankruptcy.
The DGSE estimates that Alain Duménil owes them 15 million euros, including three million in interest.
The former banker administers companies in various fields: luxury, real estate, aeronautics industry, press…
He was convicted of complicity in bankruptcy in 2012 by the Grenoble Court of Appeal. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that in this case, the Court of Appeal had violated Alain Duménil’s right to a fair trial.
In another case, he was sentenced on appeal in 2014 to a financial penalty of 450,000 euros for insider trading.
In this case, the former chief of staff of Mr. Bajolet, Jean-Pierre Palasset, number 2 of the institution at the material time, was heard in October under the status of assisted witness.
The current director of the DGSE Bernard Emié and the former boss of the PAF of Roissy, who after validation of his central management asked his teams to organize the interview, were heard as simple witnesses.
Asked, the DGSE refused to respond to AFP, referring to one of its previous statements where it denied “having made the slightest threat” to Alain Duménil, “an international business man and a delinquent”.
AFP
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