A SPECIAL French court yesterday charged Charles Pasqua, the senator at the centre of Iraqi bribery allegations, with offences in three cases of alleged corruption while he served as Interior Minister.

The move against M Pasqua, 77, although unconnected with Iraq, embarrassed Paris as it sought to pour scorn on American allegations that he and other senior French politicians, businessmen and officials had received millions of pounds in a campaign orchestrated by the regime of Saddam Hussein to influence France.

The court appearance by M Pasqua, 77, a longtime associate of President Chirac and a senior Gaullist party figure until the mid-1990s, involved the granting of a casino licence and hundreds of thousands of pounds of alleged illicit payments from businesses.

The Court of Justice of the Republic, the only tribunal that can prosecute sitting or former members of the Government for offences during their tenure, could decide to strip M Pasqua of his parliamentary immunity and put him on trial for the allegations, which involve his time as minister from 1993 to 1995.

The colourful, Mediterranean politician was elected only two weeks ago to the upper parliamentary house for the Hauts-de-Seine département on the western side of Paris.

The seat offers him immunity as investigating judges seek to prosecute him over half a dozen cases, including alleged arms sales to Angola and illicit funding from the Middle East and Africa of his political campaigns. M Pasqua angrily denied that he had taken Iraqi money when the allegations surfaced in Baghdad this year.

After the publication of the report on Iraq by Charles Duelfer, the American weapons inspector, on Wednesday, Paris has dismissed as politically inspired nonsense the allegation that France was the main target, with Russia, of Iraq’s effort to buy influence with members of the United Nations Security Council.

Pierre Joxe, a Socialist former Defence and Interior Minister, joined the chorus of outrage yesterday, denying Washington’s claim that he had taken $1 million from Baghdad as a contribution to President Mitterrand’s party finances in 1988.

However, some commentators said that the French authorities might now feel obliged to investigate the Iraq allegations.

The Libération newspaper reported yesterday that Judge Philippe Courroye, the investigator who has been pursuing the cases against M Pasqua and other senior public figures, was looking into alleged money-laundering with Iraqi connections by Total, the French oil company.

French investigators believe that a Lebanese lawyer who was close to Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, contributed heavily to France-Afrique-Orient, a political association founded by M Pasqua.

Mr Aziz was the main link between Baghdad and its friends in Paris, including M Pasqua.

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