Among them are Pascaline Bongo, 66, eldest daughter and former chief of staff of her father, Omar Denis Jr Bongo, 28, also grandson of Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Jeanne Matoua, 38, and Joseph Matoua, 40 years old, the same source told AFP, confirming information from Africa Intelligence.
They were indicted for concealment of embezzlement of public funds, active and passive corruption, money laundering and abuse of corporate assets, according to the same source.
French justice suspects several members of the family of having “knowingly” benefited from an important real estate heritage “fraudulently” acquired in France by the patriarch, president of Gabon from 1967 to his death in 2009.
The value of these goods was recently assessed by the courts “at least 85 million euros”.
For Pascaline Bongo’s lawyer, Me Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt, there is in this procedure “a legal and factual anachronism”.
Lawyer for Omar Denis Jr Bongo, Me Jean-Marie Viala challenged with AFP the indictment of his client “on the basis of law”, “not morality”.
Between March and April, the Parisian financial judge Dominique Blanc had already indicted Grace, Betty, Arthur then Hermine Bongo, other children of the late president, all in their fifties, who denied having had knowledge of the fraudulent nature of this fortune.
“It’s a whole family clan that will have to be accountable,” reacted to AFP Me William Bourdon, lawyer for Transparency International France, civil party in the case.
In this investigation, which was launched after a complaint by NGOs in 2007, in addition to the Bongo children and BNP Paribas, fourteen other individuals were prosecuted, including members of the family of Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso and several French people, including a lawyer, a notary or a manager of a civil real estate company (SCI).
“This does not concern the President of the Republic, nor any member of the Gabonese Republic’s presidency, so there is nothing to comment on,” said Jessye Ella Ekogha, spokesperson for the Gabonese presidency, when asked by AFP. .
