Off the wire
• 1st LD Writethru-China Focus: Action plan aims to double e-commerce sales  • China launches summer fire safety campaign  • Educational technology improved in China since 2012: MOE  • Singaporeans help to determine names of eight new navy ships  • Xi congratulates Peter Christian on election as Micronesian president  • Sanskrit class reveals China' s growing fever with Indology, Buddhism  • Ford to recall Lincoln MKZ over defective headlamps  • Transport chaos looms as 24-hour national rail strike called in Britain  • 1st LD-Writethru: China pledges faster and cheaper Internet  • 1st LD-Writethru: China's stocks close lower on IPO concerns  
You are here: 　 Home

Former French justice minister denounces "political conspiracy" amid invoices affair

Xinhua, May 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

European lawmaker Rachida Dati said she was a target of "political cabal" after France's audit office, La Cour des Comptes, refused to approve thousands of euros spent on luxury clothes and gifts while Dati was justice minister.

Speaking to iTELE news channel, Dati stressed she was a victim of a political plotting by ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy aids.

"That's quite enough. If they want to try and catch me out on money, bling-bling and the like, it's not the case," she said on Thursday.

"The justice ministry never financed my personal expenses or bought me any clothes whatsoever. I didn't live at the ministry and my spending was financed using my own money," she added.

In its report published Wednesday, the state auditor rejected invoices worth 8,959 euros (about 10,123 U.S. dollars) spent on "luxury clothes, drinks, meals, pastries, newspapers and pharmaceutical products."

According to Le Point magazine, thousands of euros were spent on luxury scarves for the ex-minister's personal use while she was in office.

In a communique, Dati's defense lawyer Aurelien Hamelle, said only a third of the sum concerned luxury clothes and accessories, which were "gifts for foreign judicial delegations," adding "It's a perfectly normal practice."

The audit office also refused to validate 180,000 euros worth of "communication consulting" the ministry spent between 2007 and 2010. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Endit