Peacekeepers point fingers at each other at bribery trial

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Two men accused of accepting bribes while serving in Finnish peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan tried to heap blame on each other at their trial in Helsinki District Court on Friday. The two admitted to having accepted bribes from local building contractors, but said that the amounts of money received were lower than the prosecution claims.
      District Prosecutor Jouni Peräinen is pressing charges of aggravated bribe-taking. The defendants are willing to admit to a lesser offence.
     
One of the defendants, a man born in 1963, served as a project engineer of the Finnish crisis management force in Kabul. He was responsible for arranging competitive bidding for local contractors, and monitored the progress of the construction process.
      The other defendant, born in 1955, was the main interpreter.
      The prosecution says that the two received bribes totalling about EUR 36,000 from local contractors for ten construction contracts between 2004 and 2006. The defendants have admitted to most of these charges.
      "If the contractor did not agree to paying the bribes, another contractor was given the contract, in at least some of the cases", the prosecutor said.
     
both defendants denied that the bribes would have influenced who was granted the contracts. However, they admitted that those who paid the bribes thought that this was the case.
      The main who served as the main interpreter said that the solicitation of bribes was initially proposed by the project engineer. He said that the engineer had spoken of similar practices at his previous peacekeeping missions.
      Before Afghanistan, the man had served in Lebanon and Bosnia. The interpreter said that the engineer had taken two thirds of the bribe money and that he got the rest of it.
      According to the engineer's version, the two split the take, and the idea of soliciting bribes came from the interpreter.
      "I figured then, that I guess it's OK to take the money, if that is the custom in this country."
     
The court also heard that the main interpreter had nearly EUR 430,000 on a German bank account. The prosecution wants the money to be forfeited to the state, even though he is not sure where the money was from.
      "The discrepancy between the defendant's earnings and the money in his bank account is so great that there is reason to assume that they have a criminal origin", the prosecutor said.
      The Afghan-born defendant said that his mother fled the communist government of her country with the family's entire fortune in cash in a suitcase.
      He said that the German bank had invested the money over the years, and that the same bank account also contained money from his own business activities.
     
Investigators of Finland's Defence Staff suspect that some other peacekeepers might have been in on the bribery scheme. Some of their superior officers are under suspicion, and a criminal investigation has been launched.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aamulehti: Several suspects in peacekeeping bribes scandal (1.6.2007)
  Two Finnish peacekeepers to go on trial for taking bribes in Afghanistan
  Second Finnish soldier under suspicion in Afghanistan bribery case
  Finnish military official suspected of taking bribes in Afghanistan (7.9.2006)

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