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Beny Steinmetz trial: 5 years in prison required

 

Around 8:15 p.m., this Tuesday, January 12, the prosecutor Yves Bertossa stopped addressing the three defendants lined up in the middle of room A3 of the Geneva Criminal Court. At the end of an indictment lasting nearly six hours which invoked the African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King (“The slightest injustice, wherever it is committed, threatens the entire edifice”) and the former – Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan (“Corruption is a smoldering evil in many countries, but it is the developing countries that suffer the most”), his gaze turned to the three judges. The vehement litigant lowered his voice. “Me, I am shocked. We are in an economic offense. I do not understand how one treats with so much contempt the institutions of a poor country ”, he tried to convince one last time, dismayed.

Then he demanded 5 years in prison against the mining magnate Beny Steinmetz and 50 million Swiss francs in compensatory claims (a sort of confiscation of assets in Swiss law), 4 years in prison and 11 million dollars against the man. French businessman Frédéric Cilins, and finally two years suspended prison sentence and $ 150,000 against the Belgian Sandra Merloni Horemans, director who managed “between 200 and 400 companies” of Beny Steinmetz Group (BSG), and of its mining branch BSG -Resources (BSGR).

All three are accused of “bribery of foreign public officials” and “forgery of titles”. The facts go back between 2006 and 2012, and with the acquisition by BSGR of mining permits on the mega-iron deposit of Simandou and that of Zogota, in the south-east of Guinea. According to the Swiss public prosecutor, some $ 10 million in bribes were paid in return to Mamadie Touré, 4e wife of former Guinean President Lansana Conté.

Pentler, “the screen of corruption”

A key witness to this case, Guinean Mamadie Touré, who has lived in Florida since the early 2010s, did not appear in court. No more than the ten other witnesses – two prosecution in all – called to the bar this Wednesday. A major flaw in this trial that will not fail to denounce, even more vigorously this time, the defense lawyers this Friday during pleadings. “We very much regretted the absence of Mamadie Touré during this trial, concedes prosecutor Caroline Babel Casutt when Yves Bertossa passes the baton to her. But she only confirms the prosecution case. When Israeli investigators (the investigation was carried out in collaboration with American, Guinean and Israeli police officers) asked her in February 2017 how much she received, she answered approximately $ 10 million. While all the elements making it possible to establish it had not yet been added to the procedure. ”

Letters of commitment, contracts or memoranda of understanding – the authenticity disputed by BSGR – emerge particularly after the granting by the Guinean Ministry of Mines, on February 6, 2006, of seven mining exploration permits to a subsidiary Guinean from BSGR. “All corruptive pacts are evidenced by contracts,” accuses Caroline Babel Vasutt. One of these documents, dated February 20, 2006, guarantees Mamadie Touré a free stake of 5% in the BSGR Simandou project. It is established by the company Pentlers Holdings, a company in the bosom of BSGR registered in the British Virgin Islands, and sold on February 14 for a trifle to Frédéric Cilins, who will pilot Pentler alongside his two Israeli partners, Michael Noy and Abraham. Lev Ran. However, that same day, Pentler receives a letter from a Guinean subsidiary of the group, BSGR BVI, which confirms the granting, free of charge, of 17.65% of its shares. And a bonus of 19.5 million dollars for obtaining mining titles in Simandou, according to the documents paid to the procedure. Two years later, Pentler’s shares were bought back by BSGR Guinea in 2008 for $ 22 million, to which bonuses of $ 12 million were added. A financial package, according to investigators, which allowed the payment of bribes. “Mamadie Touré confirms that Pentler is a screen for BSGR, she says,” it was in the middle, between BSGR and me “, proclaims the prosecutor. It also confirms all contracts, all payments. She says: “when Beny is satisfied, he is satisfied”, and it was he who came to offer her a 5% stake in Pentler. Madam President, if that is not a corruptive pact… Everything is written in black and white. ”

Steinmetz, aware of nothing

The Franco-Israeli Beny Steinmetz, whose version of the facts will be developed at greater length this Friday by his council Me Bonnant, had said during his hearing on January 12, yet to have seen Mamadie Touré only once … and from afar. It was in 2008, according to him, during a meeting with the former general Lansana Conté, in the shade of the baobab tree of the Palais des Nations in Conakry (now the Mohamed-V palace). “I was told that among the women, behind, in the courtyard, there was his mistress, Mamadie Touré. It was the only time I saw her, but I never spoke to her. (…) Mamadie Touré told a lot of lies, particularly in connection with my visits to Guinea. And regarding the payments she received, I do not know, ”he summarized. During this hearing, he also presented himself as an “advisor”, “ambassador” of BSGR, without any mandate in the myriad of companies of the group, and not even participating in the board of directors. He only appears officially as a beneficiary of the Liechtenstein Balda foundation, the ultimate owner of the group.

“We have a group, BSG with assets that span billions of dollars, but it’s a headless group. We are at 7 years of proceedings, 3 days of hearing, and who is in charge? It goes by itself. (…) We saw in the tainted blood trial the notion of “responsible but not guilty”, and today we have a new theory: neither responsible nor guilty. It is the theory of magic corruption, without corrupter, nor corrupted ”, loses the prosecutor Yves Bertossa. In front of him, in the first row of the benches of the defendants, Beny Steinmetz, skinny figure, drawn up on his chair, the neat pace, does not flinch. He takes notes, scribbles on a piece of paper.

Frédéric Cilins, the baroudeur

Prosecutor Yves Bertossa has been particularly severe in recent days against Frédéric Cilins, considered the scout of the Simandou project on behalf of BSGR. With him opens an audience-river of nearly two days. It began on Tuesday evening and ended this Thursday at 11:40 a.m., at 4e day of this trial. This talkative entrepreneur with a touch of southern accent, originally from the Côte d’Azur, looks back on his first business in Africa with two Israeli partners, Michael Noy and Abraham Lev Ran, from 2000. The trio specializes in imports -export of consumer goods, especially para-pharmaceutical products. Cilins has several companies, travels a lot – he estimates he has visited “25-26 countries” on the continent. He is a man of the field, well connected.

In Mali, for example, he binds with the entrepreneur Ismaila Daou, close to the daughter of the late Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). They discuss together the gold potential in Mali, then talk about Guinea. “Daou used the term ‘geological scandal’. I didn’t even know, ”he admits. He went to Conakry in 2005.

“Are you a backpacker in Africa? »Asks his lawyer. “Everyone will put on the terms they want, but I spent time there to build relationships of trust with local partners, it’s important,” he replies. He later argues to have “worn his pants on the chairs of the administrations” responsible for the mining sector in Conakry, to have caught malaria, to have invested a lot of time and energy to obtain the first exploration permits. on behalf of BSGR. And to have had the idea, to distinguish BSGR from the majors present in Guinea, to propose a participation of the State in the mining project (the participation of 15% of the State in the mining projects is effective since the promulgation of the code mining of 2011, Editor’s note). As for Mamadie Touré, he would have met her through her half-brother, the journalist Ibrahima Sory Touré, without knowing at the time that she was the 4e wife of General Conté. Mamadie Touré, however, testifies that Cilins was introduced to her by former Sports Minister Fodé Soumah. “Cilins told me that BSGR wanted to operate iron mines at all costs,” she said in a document filed in various court proceedings on December 2, 2013.

“Mr. Cilins, you refused to express yourself, why did you change your mind? »Asks President Alexandra Banna. “It was mainly on the advice of my American lawyer. Since proceedings were underway, there was no question of handing me over, ”he replies, referring to his conviction, on June 25, 2014, to two years in prison by a federal court in New York for obstructing Justice.

Frédéric Cilins was arrested on April 14, 2013 in Jacksonville, Florida, where Mamadie Touré resides. That day, they meet at an airport cafe, but he is unaware that she agreed to become a cooperating witness for the FBI, as part of a US grand jury investigation into the violation. of the Corrupt Practices Abroad Act (FCPA) by BSGR. And that she wears a microphone.

The French asked him to draw up a certificate and destroy the original documents linking it to BSGR or Pentler, a company he co-manages. “If American investigators come to see you, you simply tell them that you have nothing to do with any case, all that is said is nonsense. Like we did on the certificate, remember? That I have nothing to do with everything you tell me and here it is… That I have never seen BSGR (…) The deal of the documents, that’s what I told you: we destroy all documents, you have 200,000 and then 800,000 dollars that are yours, no matter what. Whatever happens, you’ve got $ 1 million, ”he told the Guinean, according to the FBI’s transcript of their conversation. It ends with this sentence: “Get up, put your hands behind your back. Cilins is arrested.

The prosecutor Yves Bertossa returns at length to the episode of the “eavesdropping”. “But what does Mamadie Touré say when you tell her that if she doesn’t lie to the FBI, she’s going to go to bed?” “And reproach him for not showing” at least an outline, tenderness, an apology to Mamadie Touré to whom (he) made such remarks “. “And the certificate you are talking about in Florida, it almost resembles the one prepared by Master Jean Veil in Paris (who was the lawyer for BSGR, Editor’s note)? And you tell us that Beny Steinmetz doesn’t know about it? »He finally makes him note that Mamadie Touré mentions in this exchange that she has a diplomatic passport. And that Cilins could not therefore ignore – he had claimed not to know at the time of his meeting with her that she was the wife of Lansana Conté – his status.

False in titles

Prosecutor Caroline Babel Vasutt then reported on the examination of certain money transfers that allowed payments to Mamadie Touré. She is looking in particular at the creation of a false sale of land in Romania, which, according to her, would have made it possible to mask the origin of the funds paid. “Why all this circus, why all this staging for a transfer of funds that must be masked? Beny Steinmetz tried to explain this payment to us, but your explanations, Mr. Steinmetz, are not very detailed, convoluted, ”she said, addressing the Franco-Israeli, who listened to her seriously. According to her, Sandra Merloni Horemans, a 49-year-old Belgian, employed since the age of 19 by Beny Steinmetz’s group, could not have been unaware of what was happening in Guinea. “It’s as if we asked a director to adapt a play without reading it”, asserts the lawwoman.


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