Arms deal kickback case: ‘French arms deal nothing to do with 2002 Karachi bombing’

PARIS: French investigators do not believe the 2002 bombing of a bus transporting French engineers in Karachi was revenge for the non-payment of arms deal bribes, intelligence documents seen by AFP on Tuesday show.

The theory of a revenge attack, carried out after former president Jacques Chirac cancelled the payment of bribes on arms deals signed with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in 1994, has circulated for years.

Claims that some of the money paid in bribes was channelled back to France to help fund the 1995 presidential campaign of Chirac´s conservative rival, ex-prime minister Edouard Balladur, appeared to bolster that theory.