FRANCE is still investigating Malaysia’s purchase of Scorpene submarines that were made under Najib Razak while he was defence minister, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.

In a post on the Finance Ministry’s Facebook page, Lim said he met with French Ambassador Frédéric Laplanche at the ministry in Putrajaya today, where the latter affirmed that the French were still on the case that involved allegations of kickbacks.

“(Laplanche) expressed full support for the new Malaysian Government’s promotion of transparency and exposés of financial scandals where truths and justice should be paramount.

“Disclosed the good news that the French judicial system is pursuing the €1 bilion (5.28 billion) Scorpene submarine corruption scandal,” Lim said in the post.

The purchase was made in 2002 from French naval dockyards unit DCN.

In 2009, French authorities indicted two former top executives, one of them from a DCN subsidiary, for corruption in relation to the purchase.

Some RM540 million was also allegedly paid as commission for the deal to Perimekar Sdn Bhd, a company linked to Najib’s confidante and political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda.

Some funds from the sale also purportedly went to another company, Terasasi Ltd, registered in Hong Kong, that was also linked to Abdul Razak.

Local human rights groups Suaram had filed complaints with the French authorities that led to the start of a judicial investigation in Paris in 2012.

Abdul Razak was indicted by the French court in July last year for complicity in bribery and in acceptance for bribes; however, an indictment in the French legal system is not the same as a prosecutorial charge under Commonwealth law.

New Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu recently said that his ministry would set up a task force to investigate the Scorpene case. – June 22, 2018.