A French judge has charged the defence group Thales with complicity in bribery over a 2002 sale of submarines to Malaysia, sources close to the inquiry told AFP on Tuesday.

The long-running case into alleged kickbacks was opened in 2010 and eventually caught up the former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.

Najib was defence minister when the deal was signed to buy two Scorpene-class submarines and one Agosta submarine from French naval dockyards unit DCN, now part of Thales, in a deal worth $1.2 billion.

Najib's associate Abdul Razak Baginda acted as an adviser on the deal, and he is accused of disguising the kickback of more than 114 million euros ($121 million at the present-day exchange rate) as "consulting work" by a firm in which he was the largest shareholder.

The money was then allegedly given to Najib, who has faced a series of graft cases since he was voted out as Malaysia's prime minister in 2018.

Razak Baginda was charged in France in 2017, while Najib has been questioned by Malaysian anti-graft investigators.

In total nine defendants, including Thales, have been charged in France and the investigations were closed in January 2022, the sources said.

They also include Philippe Japiot, former chairman of the French naval dockyards unit DCN International, and Jean-Paul Perrier, a former Thales chief executive, along with two other former executives.

All four deny any wrongdoing and the Malaysian government has said the contract was free of corruption.

Contacted by AFP, Thales said "it strongly contests these allegations."

Prosecutors from France's PNF financial crimes office will now consider any further requests to the judge, who will have a final say on whether the case goes to trial, though an appeal was already filed in May 2021.

France's Thales accused of selling to Russia despite sanctions, denied by company
Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) April 22, 2022 –

A senior Ukrainian official on Friday accused French defence electronics company Thales of violating European sanctions and selling Russia equipment that was used to kill civilians fleeing recent fighting outside Kyiv, claims strongly denied by Thales.

"A family was trying to escape but was killed by Russian murderers," tweeted presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak. "Killed, as it is now proved, with French weapons sold in circumvention of sanctions in 2015."

Reached by AFP, Thales, whose largest shareholder is the French state, denied violating the sanctions that were imposed after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014.

"Thales has always strictly complied with French and international regulations, including concerning the 2014 European sanctions against Russia," the group said.

"No defence equipment export contract has been signed with Russia since 2014 and no delivery has been made to Russia since the start of the conflict in Ukraine", said the company, adding that it has decided to cease operations in Russia.

In his Twitter post, Podolyak referenced a video made by Ukrainian blogger Pavlo Kashchuk, who examined a car found in the town of Bucha outside of Kyiv, where Ukraine accuses Russian forces of massacring hundreds of civilians.

Kashchuk said the car, in which a woman's body was found, was riddled with holes from shells fired from armoured vehicles from a large distance.

"How could poorly trained Russian soldiers shoot so accurately with old post-Soviet equipment?" Kashchuk asked.

He said he found the answer to this question in the nearby town of Vorzel, where Ukrainian forces captured four of Russia's BMD-4 armoured vehicles.

Kashchuk said those vehicles were equipped with sophisticated fire control systems, technology that had been sold to Russia by Thales.

In his video the blogger also showed a thermal camera which he says was recovered from an abandoned Russian tank. The Thales logo is visible on it, accompanied by the date 06/16 and the words "made in Russia."

Kashchuk said it was assembled in Russia using Thales components.

"It's just one of the many schemes allowing Western companies to circumvent the embargo and continue supplying the Russian army of evil with the most state-of-the-art military technologies," he said.

The accusations follow a March report by the investigative outlet Disclose, which found that France had delivered military equipment, including thermal cameras, to Russia between 2015 and 2020.

The French Defence Ministry said it was fulfilling contracts concluded before the sanctions were adopted in July 2014, under the so-called grandfathering clause.