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The Age > Home > Breaking News > Article

Cheney faces prosecution: report

December 21, 2003 - 12:05PM

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A French official is examining whether to prosecute US Vice President Dick Cheney over alleged complicity in the abuse of corporate assets dating from the time he was head of the services company Halliburton, the French newspaper Le Figaro said.

The case stems from a contract by a consortium including the American company Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a Halliburton subsidiary, and a French company, Technip, to supply a gas complex to Nigeria, the newspaper reported.

A Paris investigating magistrate has been conducting investigations since October into allegations that $US180 million ($A243.18 million) was paid in secret commissions during the late 1990s up to 2002 from funds established by the consortium in Madeira, the report said.

Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive between 1995 and 2000.

In a letter to the attorney-general's department, magistrate Reynaud van Ruymbeke ruled out directly prosecuting Cheney on a charge of bribing foreign officials, Le Figaro said.

But the official did not exclude the possibility of prosecution on the grounds of complicity in misuse of corporate assets, it added.