Former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur is to face court over a probe into alleged kickbacks in a submarine deal with Pakistan in the mid-1990s, France's top prosecutor Francois Molins said Tuesday, Deutsche Welle reports.
The "Karachi affair" was a major scandal involving negotiations between then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the French presidencies of Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac for the sale of Agosta 90B-class submarines. A contract was eventually signed in 1994.
Investigators are looking into allegations that kickbacks and commissions from the deal were used to finance Balladur's presidential campaign in 1995.
The claims surfaced after a 2002 suicide bombing in the Pakistani city of Karachi that targeted French engineers working on the submarine project. Pakistani authorities blamed Islamist militants, but an investigation has raised questions about whether the attack may have been in retaliation for non-payment of bribes.
Balladur served as prime minister of France between 1993 and 1995 under Francois Mitterrand and lost his subsequent bid for the presidency to Chirac.
The 90-year-old is expected to stand trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal set up for past and present members of government. He has denied wrongdoing.