Ex SNC-Lavalin VP denied bid to stay bribery charge
A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled on Friday that the delay was not unreasonable for former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Sami Abdellah Bebawi as he awaited trial on charges alleging he bribed Libyan government officials.
Bebawi was first charged in the case in 2014 and last year was given the option of a trial that would have started this month. Instead, Bebawi filed a motion arguing he had waited too long for his trial and that he has suffered hardships since being charged. His trial is now set to begin in April 2019.
In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada set new limits on how long a person accused of a crime should expect to wait before their trial begins. The delay in Superior Court cases was set at 30 months. However, cases that began before the Supreme Court of Canada decision was rendered can go beyond the delay under certain circumstances.
Based on Justice Guy Cournoyer’s calculations, the net delay in Bebawi’s case is nearly 34 months beyond the limit, much of which can be attributed to “institutional delays” common at courthouses in larger Canadian cities like Montreal.
“Even if the significant institutional delays limited the action that could have been taken, the prosecution undertook several initiatives that contributed to a reduction in the delays,” Cournoyer said.
The judge also noted that the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling, known at the Jordan decision, allows judges to weigh the seriousness of the charges an accused faces against the length of the delay.
Bebawi faces eight charges in all. That includes an allegation he defrauded the Libyan government and other government organizations, including the Management and Implementation Authority of the Great Man Made River Project, between 2001 and 2009. The charge involves a $58-million contract SNC-Lavalin was awarded in 2001 to restore a 26-kilometre pipeline to transport water to the city of Benghazi and other parts of Libya. The contract was awarded while Libya was led by dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed in 2011.
Another charge alleges Bebawi bribed “one, or many, public agents” in the Libyan government between 2001 and 2008. He is also accused of being in possession of more than $26 million, between 2001 and 2012, while knowing the money was “obtained or came from, directly or indirectly, the perpetration” of crimes like fraud and bribery.
Two other charges allege Bebawi was in possession of a condominium in Clearwater, Fla., and three bank accounts while knowing they were obtained “in whole or in part” while committing fraud and bribing Libyan government officials.
Bebawi was an SNC-Lavalin vice-president from 2000 to 2006 and he stayed on as a consultant until 2011. During that time he made, on average, $1 million a year.
On March 16, he testified he felt like he was “a scapegoat” for SNCLavalin and alleged: “They caused it. They are the corrupter.” He also said the Crown buried him in “a mountain of documents” when it turned over its evidence and that most of documents did not pertain to his case. He said it took five months just to sort out what documents he should focus on for his defence.
Groupe SNC-Lavalin Inc., its international subsidiary and SNC- Lavalin Construction Inc. are all charged, also at the Montreal courthouse, in a separate case that will enter the preliminary inquiry stage in September. In that case, the three companies are alleged to have paid $47 million to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011 to influence government decisions.
In February, a stay of proceedings was placed on a different case where Bebawi and a lawyer, Constantine Kyres, 55, were charged with attempting to obstruct justice. They were accused of making an attempt to bribe Riadh Ben Aissa, the man who took over Bebawi’s position as vice-president with SNC-Lavalin, to change a statement he gave to the RCMP. The court ruled that some of the evidence gathered in that case violated the right a client has to privacy when they communicate with their lawyer.