Mitterand linked to Kohl scandal -- Report

Mitterand linked to Kohl scandal -- Report
DEUTSCHE PRESSE AGENTEUR

Hamburg, January 23: The German funds scandal around ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl widened at the weekend with new claims that the late French President Francois Mitterrand contributed millions in undeclared funds to help finance Kohl's re-election campaign.

Secret service officials helped make the deal in which some 30 million German Marks ($ 15.7) flowed into the Christian Democrats' (CDU) war chest as part of a bilateral oil industry deal, according to reports by German and French television stations. The payments were allegedly made in 1992 when France's state-owned oil giant Elf Aquitaine bought the Leuna oil refinery in the formerly east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany's public ard station and France Deux television said on Saturday.

The ARD report quoted a ``high-ranking informant close to Mitterrand'' as saying: ``It was not bribe money. The money was for the election campaign. The payment was in the state's interest - for Europe.''

Kohl, who led the party for 25 years, immediately denied thereport, which he called a smear campaign. The German report said Elf, under Mitterrand's orders, paid some 85 million Marks, of which 30 million Marks were allegedly a hidden payment to aid Kohl's campaign.

A spokesman for Kohl said claims of financial help from Mitterrand to Kohl were lies, that the two leaders never discussed money in connection to the Elf-Leuna deal, and that Kohl had never received money from Paris or acknowledged any such payments.

CDU general secretary Angela Merkel said an audit of party finances by international chartered accountants Ernst Young of that period had produced no clues to back claims of such payments.

She added however, that the new allegations showed the need to completely clear up all questions regarding the conservative party's financial affairs. The CDU leadership was due to debate the as yet unreleased audit report this evening local time. The chairman of a parliamentary committee investigating the scandal, Social Democrat Volker Neumann, spoke of ``almostunimaginable events'' following the latest reports. A search for missing chancellor's office files on the Leuna case would be stepped up, he told ARD.

The news weekly Der Spiegel reported that files on the billion-dollar Leuna deal had also gone missing from Saxony-Anhalt government offices. Staff of the state's new premier, Social Democrat Reinhard Hoeppner, had found almost no documents about the deal, which was agreed under his CDU predecessor Werner Muench.

Last December it emerged that key Leuna files from the Kohl era had gone missing from the Chancellor's office. Swiss and French investigators have for years searched for some 85 million Marks in bribes that went missing after they were allegedly transferred to Swiss bank accounts as part of the sale, which also included the Minol chain of petrol stations.

Kohl and Mitterrand, elder statesmen of Europe who enjoyed a cordial personal relationship, both supported Elf's interest in the German company.