Bribes part of business model, Crown says

MONTREAL • A former top executive at Snc-lavalin says he was told to do whatever it takes — and pay whoever was necessary — to ensure the firm stopped losing money on a construction project in Libya in the early 2000s.

That demand, the Crown argued on Thursday, is what led to what it says became the firm’s “business model” in Libya: paying millions in kickbacks and bribes, including to dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son, to keep steering lucrative contracts toward the firm.

Prosecutors said the gifts culminated with the firm buying Saadi Gadhafi a $25-million, 150-foot yacht.

The details emerged during the first day of former Snc-lavalin executive vice-president Sami Bebawi’s fraud trial at the Montreal courthouse.

Bebawi, 73, faces charges of fraud, bribing a foreign public official and possession of property obtained by crime, including three bank accounts, a condo in Florida and two amounts of roughly $15 million and $12 million. The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.

The first witness called by the Crown, former Snclavalin executive Riadh Ben Aissa, said he first met with Bebawi shortly after he was nominated to his role as executive vice-president.

The meeting concerned losses the engineering firm was incurring through a project and a multimillion-dollar claim it had filed against its client to regain its money.

The client, the Great Manmade River Authority, was a state institution tasked by Moammar Gadhafi to build infrastructure that could bring water from the desert to coastal cities.

For different reasons, it had turned out to be much more costly than the Snclavalin

division first anticipated and the firm was losing money on it. It filed a claim against the authority to try to recover the additional costs, but the negotiations weren’t going anywhere.

Ben Aissa, who had been leading the project for Snclavalin, said he exhausted all avenues by the time Bebawi came into the picture. Ben Aissa said the message from his new boss was clear: settle the claim and retrieve the firm’s money, by any means necessary, or his job was on the line.

“There was no limit to what I could do,” Ben Aissa said, “as long as I recuperated the money.”

Ben Aissa was arrested in Switzerland in 2012 for his role in the firm’s Libyan dealings. While detained, he signed an agreement to collaborate with Canadian authorities.

On Thursday, he detailed the pressure he says Bebawi put on him to make sure the firm settled the claim and emphasized that any dealings he had with Saadi Gadhafi were approved by Bebawi.

He detailed taking a private plane from Tunisia to Tripoli, Libya, where he was first introduced to Saadi Gadhafi at his offices in military barracks.

Their first official meeting came later over breakfast in Rome. Their relationship from then on, Ben Aissa said, developed from a business relationship to a more personal one.

“You develop affinities and a certain trust,” he said, “but above all, it was a professional relationship.”

The Crown argues Ben Aissa managed to get the firm’s claim paid with the “collaboration, support and interventions” of Saadi Gadhafi and that all involved received payments. Gadhafi received $5.75 million for his role, it said.

Once the claim was settled, the prosecution added, further contracts started heading toward Snc-lavalin.

“The Crown will call 10 witnesses throughout the trial.

In his opening remarks to the jury, Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer told the 14 jurors to ignore anything they’ve heard about corruption allegations concerning the Snc-lavalin engineering firm.

Bebawi has pleaded not guilty. The trial continues Friday.