PARIS — After a riveting eight-month trial that gave the French a replay of a decade of corporate malfeasance, a French court on Wednesday convicted several senior executives of the former French oil company Elf Aquitaine of corruption and sentenced them to jail terms and fines for their role in bilking Elf of hundreds of millions of dollars while it was still a state-owned company.
The graft at Elf, which has since been privatized and forms part of the giant Total oil group, stretched from the halls of government in Paris through offshore bank accounts to government leaders in former French colonies.
On Wednesday afternoon, a seven-judge court convicted the former chief executive of the company, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, 60, of embezzling company funds, gave him a five-year prison sentence and fined him 375,000 euros, about $435,000. Alfred Sirven, 76, his deputy, was convicted on similar charges and also received a five-year sentence.
A third Elf executive, Andre Tarallo, who was once known as " Africa" because he coordinated Elf's considerable activities there, was found guilty and given a four-year jail term. He and Sirven were each fined a million euros, or $1.15 million.
Le Floch-Prigent and Sirven are already serving time in jail for convictions in an earlier trial. The court ordered that Tarallo be jailed immediately, and he was escorted from the courtroom by guards. The court concluded that the three men had amassed personal fortunes totaling at least 305 million euros through illegal payments from Elf.
The three men were among 37 defendants in the trial, in which convictions were also handed down against Le Floch-Prigent's former wife, Fatima Belaid, and a close friend, Maurice Bidermann, the wealthy owner of a textile group. It was not immediately clear whether any or some of those convicted would appeal the verdicts. Only one of the 37 defendants, Nathan Meyohas, a Turkish businessman who had links with Elf, was acquitted.
Notably absent among the defendants were any representatives of the French political elite. In an earlier trial, a former foreign minister, Roland Dumas, was found guilty of accepting favors from Elf through his mistress, Christine Deviers-Joncours, a former lingerie model and lobbyist for Elf. But the conviction of Dumas was overturned by a higher court in January.