Grace, Betty, Arthur then Hermine: four children of the late Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba have just been indicted for the first time by French justice in the fifteen-year-old case of Gabonese “ill-gotten gains” in France , learned AFP from a source familiar with the matter on April 21, 2022. Between March 25 and April 5, financial judge Dominique Blanc successively indicted Grace (58), Betty (55), Arthur (51) then Hermine Bongo (53) for concealment of embezzlement of public funds, active and passive corruption and abuse of corporate assets.
French justice suspects several members of the Bongo family, from Omar, the late father, to Ali, the son and current president, via the daughter Pascaline, of having “knowingly” benefited from a significant real estate portfolio “fraudulently” acquired by the patriarch and whose value has recently been assessed by justice “to at least 85 million euros“. The four children of Omar Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon from 1967 to his death in 2009, all challenged before the judge to be aware of this fraudulent origin.
After the indictment of the BNP in May 2021, these accusations mark a new acceleration in this difficult and long-term investigation, triggered after a complaint in March 2007. Other children, among the 54 of the former historical ally of France could follow. Contacted by AFP, Jessye Ella Ekogha, spokesperson for the Gabonese presidency, did not comment. “The Bongo family chapter that has opened will continue”commented Me William Bourdon, lawyer for the association Transparency International France, civil party in this case.
Grace Bongo’s lawyer, Me Elise Arfi, reacted on April 21, 2022 to the indictment of her client. This challenge “is completely scandalous, it is also political, no one hides it”the lawyer told AFP. “We will go to the European Court of Human Rights”she assured.
“Twenty-five years after a sale, we come looking for the owner saying that the facts which served to finance this apartment do not have a legal origin”was offended by the lawyer of Grace Bongo indicted on March 25. “It is a very, very serious attack on the right to property and the principle of legal certainty, which have constitutional value”, added Me Arfi. The latter also questioned the absence of a procedure aimed at “all heads of state who have French property”targeting leaders from the Gulf or the Maghreb. “Why only Gabon? It’s a retaliation”, she believes.
In France, Rifaat al-Assad, uncle of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, was sentenced in September on appeal to four years in prison. His defense announced an appeal. Teodorin Obiang, vice-president of Equatorial Guinea, was definitively sentenced in July 2021 to three years in prison suspended and a fine of 30 million euros, firm, after the rejection of his appeal by the Court of Cassation.
In this case of “ill-gotten gains”, in addition to the Bongo children and BNP Paribas, fourteen other individuals are being prosecuted, including members of the family of Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso and several French people, including, among others, a lawyer, a notary, a manager of a civil real estate company (SCI).