Former SNC-Lavalin executive says he’s company ‘scapegoat’
Ex-VP Bebawi emotional while pleading for stay of proceedings in his fraud trial
A Superior Court judge will decide next month whether the delay a former SNC-Lavalin executive has experienced while awaiting a trial, on charges alleging he committed fraud in deals made with the Libyan government, is unreasonable.
Sami Abdellah Bebawi, 71, a former executive vice-president with the construction giant, became emotional Friday while testifying before Justice Guy Cournoyer about the hardships he has experienced since he was charged in 2014. He said he was forced to sell his home, his wife left him, his family rarely contacts him, his access to his savings were cut off and he recently underwent a painful procedure to treat cancer in his tongue and throat.
He also accused the prosecution of having buried him in “a mountain of documents” when it turned over its evidence to him. He said they provided him with documents they gathered in another investigation, of SNC-Lavalin itself, and that it took him five months, working alone in an office, to separate which evidence was pertinent to his case.
He referred to himself as being SNC-Lavalin’s “scapegoat” and his social network has evaporated because of it. He became emotional when prosecutor Richard Roy asked him to confirm whether SNC-Lavalin is currently suing him and other former executives for $127 million.
“They caused it. They are the corrupter,” Bebawi alleged.
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 annually.
“Everyone else (investigated by SNC-Lavalin) is living with their families and I have to live with this (stress) every day. It destroyed me,” Bebawi said, adding he is so isolated from his family that when one of his daughters-in-law became pregnant, no one told him.
While recalling another example of the alienation he has experienced, Bebawi said he approached his granddaughter at a family gathering and asked her: “Do you remember me? She said, ‘Yes, but why don’t you visit us?’”
“Christmas used to be about preparing meals for 20 to 30 people,” Bebawi added later. “(Recently) at Christmas I spent four days alone in front of the television.”
The engineer also said the notoriety of his case has followed him as he tried to get back on his feet financially. He said a bank set up obstacles when he tried to access funds from his RRSP and his hopes of returning to teach at Concordia University came to an abrupt end when an official at the school told him: “The media coverage (of his case) does not allow us to take you back.”
Bebawi said he has been pushing his lawyers to “get this over with” and claims the prosecution has been stalling through tactics like handing over evidence that did not pertain to him.
Prosecutor Richard Roy argued the Crown was required by law to hand over everything it did to Bebawi. Roy also pointed out the prosecution was ready to go ahead with a trial in February, but Bebawi’s lawyer Alexandre Bergevin turned it down because he wanted to present the motion Friday before Cournoyer.
Bergevin argued the case has gone well beyond the limit set by Supreme Court of Canada in July 2016 after it ruled an accused should expect to have a trial within a reasonable amount of time. For Superior Court trials, the delay is 30 months. The delay for cases filed before 2016 can be extended under certain circumstances. Bergevin argued one thing that justifies having a stay of proceedings placed on the case is the Crown initially wanted to have Bebawi’s preliminary inquiry joined with SNCLavalin’s. Doing so would have needlessly extended the length of Bebawi’s preliminary inquiry and there was a long delay before the prosecution eventually agreed to sever the hearings, Bergevin said.
Cournoyer is scheduled to deliver his decision April 6.
Everyone else (investigated by SNC-Lavalin) is living with their families and I have to live with this (stress) every day.