Detained Total chief awaits corruption hearing

Paris, Mar 22: The chief executive of French oil firm Total was waiting in custody to be brought before judges investigating alleged kickbacks to Iran after spending the night in a police cell, judicial sources said on Thursday.

Christophe de Margerie has been in detention since Wednesday after being ordered to appear with four others including Total's finance chief, all of whom were later released without charge.

Authorities have until Friday to decide whether to place de Margerie under formal investigation as part of a three-month-old probe into suspected corruption in a 1997 gas deal with Iran.

But in a sign that the process could be accelerating, de Margerie was taken from a police station to face two judges empowered to place him under investigation, legal sources said.

De Margerie left the headquarters of the financial crime squad in a police car with heavily tinted windows accompanied by a single officer, a Reuters photographer said.

Reporters at the courthouse were deprived of a chance to witness his arrival, after either a dummy car or an alternative entrance was used, but a judicial source said he was inside the tribunal building in a new cell waiting for his lawyer.

French authorities are keen to display tough tactics in corruption inquiries after criticising Britain over its decision to drop a probe into alleged defence bribes to Saudi Arabia.

Placing de Margerie under investigation would cast him as an official suspect in the probe but may or may not lead to trial.

De Margerie is already under investigation in a separate inquiry into alleged United Nations sanctions-busting in Iraq.

High-profile formal investigations are common in France and can drag on for years, with shares in the world's fourth largest company so far unaffected by the questioning of its chief executive. They rose 0.8 percent to 50.3 euros on Thursday.

Total said the detention of de Margerie, weeks after he was promoted to chief executive, had not disrupted its operations.

''The company is functioning normally and there is absolutely no need for concern,'' a company spokesman said.

No Interim CEO

Analysts have said one of the reasons the shares have failed to react is that de Margerie's predecessor, Thierry Desmarest, remains non-executive chairman and could quickly revert to his old post should de Margerie's judicial woes worsen.

''The question of a temporary or interim plan has not arisen.

Mr de Margerie is the chief executive and the company and its employees fully support him,'' the Total spokesman said.

Paris prosecutors began investigating the 1997 South Pars gas contract between Total and Iran in December after the discovery of 95 million Swiss francs (.6 million) in the Swiss bank accounts of an intermediary, a judicial source said in December.

''Total is confident that (the) investigation will establish the absence of any illegal activities,'' the company said on Wednesday. It has also denied wrongdoing over the United Nations oil-for-food programme that eased Saddam-era sanctions on Iraq.

De Margerie headed Total's Middle East operations from 1995 to 1999 and then oversaw its exploration and production.

The Iran probe comes as Total is mulling taking part in a project worth nearly billion to build Iran's first liquefied natural gas export terminal.

De Margerie said last week Total's decision depended on technical and political issues. Washington is urging its allies not to invest in Iran as part of a campaign to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear power program.

Reuters