SNC-Lavlin case that is related to the firm’s activities in Libya has take a new turn as Quebec Superior Court sentenced Sunday former SNC-Lavalin executive as guilty of paying off foreign officials and pocketing millions as he worked to secure contracts for the Canadian engineering company in Libya.
On the fourth day of deliberations, a jury found Sami Bebawi, 73, guilty of all five charges he faced, including fraud, corruption of foreign officials and laundering proceeds of crime.
Prosecutors presented evidence that SNC-Lavalin transferred about $113 million to shell companies used to pay off people, including Saadi Gaddafi, who helped the company secure deals in Libya.
What remained in the accounts of those firms after the kickbacks were paid was then split between Bebawi and Riadh Ben Aissa, a former colleague, with Bebawi allegedly receiving about $26 million.
The company and two of its subsidiaries still face charges that they paid nearly $48 million to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011 to influence government decisions. The company is also accused of fraud and corruption for allegedly defrauding various Libyan organizations of roughly $130 million.
It was that case that thrust the Montreal company into the centre of a political controversy this year involving the governing Liberals.
For its part, the defence claimed that the amounts transferred to Bebawi were legitimate bonuses authorized by the company’s president at the time, Jacques Lamarre.
Bebawi’s attorney argued there was no evidence of any of the contracts secured in Libya being inflated and described the Crown’s key witness — Ben Aissa — as unreliable.
The defence disputed that the younger Gadhafi qualified as a foreign public official, describing him instead as a “spoiled child” who had a direct line to the late dictator but was not able to approve deals himself.
But the jury also heard evidence that Bebawi and his tax lawyer, Constantine Kyres, tried to offer a $10-million bribe to have Ben Aissa change his testimony to torpedo the case against Bebawi. Ben Aissa was detained at the time in Switzerland on Libya-related charges and informed authorities of the bribe.
The RCMP started an operation using an undercover agent during which the $10-million offer evolved into a $4-million “loan” that wouldn’t have to be repaid, an idea that the jury heard came from Bebawi.
Ben Aissa spent 30 months in preventive detention in Switzerland before pleading guilty there to bribing foreign officials and money-laundering stemming from the Libya dealings. He signed an agreement to co-operate with the RCMP before being extradited to Canada.
The jury in the Bebawi case did not hear that obstruction of justice charges against Bebawi and Kyres related to the alleged bribe were dropped earlier this year after the Crown took too long to bring the case to trial.
