MORE ON THE TOTALFINAELF CORRUPTION CASE:

An Iraqi-born British billionaire told a French court yesterday how he had paid millions of pounds in kickbacks to French oil executives. . . .

Sweating profusely in the heat of the packed courtroom at the Palais de Justice he confirmed that his company received the money and, more extraordinarily, that 1.4bn pesetas was paid back to Elf, or rather to the senior executives who had set up the deal.

This massive retro-commission, more commonly known as a kickback, first found its way into the bank account of Alfred Sirven, then Elf’s head of special operations, and was then distributed in chunks to various other executives, including the company’s president, Loik le Flock-Prigent.

Both Sirven and Le Flock-Prigent have already received prison sentences for their roles in the Elf affair.

Constantly mopping his brow with his handkerchief, Auchi stated that he was told by Elf representatives that the deal would be “good for Elf and good for France”.

Indeed.