Ex-SNC-Lavalin vice-president pleads guilty to charge in MUHC superhospital scandal
A former SNC-Lavalin vice-president pleaded guilty Tuesday to one of the charges he faced in connection with the McGill University Health Centre superhospital fraud scandal.
In a brief hearing at the Montreal courthouse, Riadh Ben Aïssa, 59, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of using forged documents. As a result, 15 other charges he faced were dropped.
Aïssa was first arrested by Swiss police in April 2012 before later being extradited to Canada to face corruption charges arising from the MUHC superhospital contract.
A joint recommendation between the Crown and defence suggested a 51-month sentence. Given the time he has already served in prison and the more than three years he has spent wearing a tracking device, Äissa was ordered to spend one more day in jail.
He was handcuffed and led toward detention following the hearing and was expected to be released soon after.
The alleged MUHC conspiracy has been described by a provincial police detective as the “biggest corruption fraud in the history of Canada.”
Äissa was among those targeted in 2013 when Quebec’s anti-corruption unit issued arrest warrants for SNC-Lavalin higher-ups, alleging they had defrauded the MUHC of $22.5 million in a bid-rigging scam to ensure the firm would win the superhospital contract.
According to an agreed statement of facts read in court Tuesday, Äissa was vice-president of SNC-Lavalin’s construction division in 2009, two years after the provincial government launched a call for tenders to build the new MUHC superhospital.
Though he would have overseen a contract signed between the firm and a shell company during his time as vice-president, the court heard, Äissa “didn’t benefit in any way from the contract.”
Both the Crown and defence pointed out how he has since been collaborating with investigators and agreed to testify against other accused.
“(Speaking) as a citizen, everything that was done at that time brought a great discredit to SNCLavalin,” Quebec Court Judge Hélène Morin told Äissa. “That’s a shame, and you were in part responsible for it.”
The Crown prosecutor in charge of the case, Nathalie Kleber, would not comment on what led the prosecution to drop the 15 other charges Äissa faced.
“Considering all the circumstances of the case, it was a just and necessary decision (...) and we’re very satisfied,” Kleber said.
In a separate development on Tuesday, Stéphane Roy, who served as a financial controller for SNC-Lavalin, was acquitted of two charges he faced in the case — fraud and using forged documents — after the Crown decided not to present any evidence against him.
“I’m very happy this is over with,” Roy said as he left the courtroom.
Three other accused are still expected to face trial in connection with the scandal: lawyer Yohann Elbaz, his brother Yanaï Elbaz, an ex-manager of the MUHC, and former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime.
The former head of the MUHC, Arthur Porter, faced corruption charges in the same case, but died of lung cancer in Panama in 2015.