-Caveat Lector- Reuters World News highlights 1000 GMT Dec 15 PARIS - An investigating magistrate has ordered former French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be formally probed on suspicion of ``falsifying documents and using falsified documents,'' judicial sources said. Missing million raises German sleaze specter By Douglas Busvine BERLIN (Reuters) - The scene could have come out of a low-budget thriller. Three men meet in a supermarket parking lot in Switzerland. One, an arms dealer, hands over a suitcase with a political ``donation'' of one million marks ($520,000). One of those who receive the money runs an accounting firm that handles payments for Germany's then-ruling party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). The other is the party's treasurer and a long-serving aide to the then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The 1991 donation came from a German defense company that had just received government approval to export 36 armored cars to Saudi Arabia, which was seeking to boost its armed forces following the Gulf War. But the money never arrived in the party's coffers. And now, eight years later, Germany's scandal of the missing million threatens to blow up into the kind of affair that has shaken political life and decimated the political caste in some other European countries in recent years. All the ingredients are there: tenacious prosecutors, an inquisitive press, angry voters and nervous politicians. ``This case is of the highest intransparency,'' Michael Wiehen, head of the German chapter of anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International, told Reuters. ``It confirms the public's impression that the party has ridden roughshod over it.'' KOHL ADMITS COMPLICITY Kohl, who dominated the CDU as party leader for a quarter of a century before he was ousted in last year's general election, admitted this week that he ran secret accounts to fund his conservative party but left much more unsaid. His dramatic confession of complicity in the political funding scandal prompted Germans to demand more details and left his party racing to contain any electoral backlash. Last week Kohl told the Reichstag the charges were ``slander'' and called for a quick parliamentary inquiry to clear his name. But former aides confirmed revelations by prosecutors and reporters digging into what could be Germany's biggest scandal since the notorious ``Flick'' affair of the 1980s. It started harmlessly enough when Augsburg state prosecutors launched a tax investigation into the affairs of former CDU treasurer Walther Leisler Kiep, whom they initially suspected of pocketing the million marks. But it turned out that Kiep had paid some of the money to a party worker who was retiring -- and who even paid tax on the bonus. Horst Weyrauch, the accountant accompanying Kiep to the parking lot rendezvous, said he received an additional share. The rest, prosecutors suspect, was kept by Kiep, who was in financial trouble after getting a hefty legal bill for his successful defense in a trial linked to the Flick affair -- a scandal in which the leading political parties accepted illicit donations from a German industrialist. The investigation exposed the CDU's practice of using secret trustee accounts to launder cash donated anonymously and then distribute it to buy the personal loyalty of local party chiefs to Kohl, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily said. Under German financing rules, the name of anyone donating more than 20,000 marks must be published in party accounts. Of 218 million marks the CDU raised in 1997, only 34 million came from donations. Most of the rest came from membership dues and state funding, according to figures published by parliament. The CDU's former No. 2, Heiner Geissler, confirmed the details uncovered by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, saying he had clashed repeatedly with Kohl on the matter before he was fired as the party's general secretary in 1989. Geissler said Kohl had not profited personally from the accounts but he urged the former leader to clear up the matter as quickly as possible. 'MORE AND MORE DANGEROUS FOR THE CDU' ``It is getting more and more dangerous for the CDU with new revelations coming out every few days,'' he told the newspaper. ``We need to come clean with the whole thing quickly.'' Augsburg prosecutors have also launched a tax investigation into the affairs of the children of Franz-Josef Strauss, a dominant figure in postwar politics and leader of Bavaria's Christian Social Union, linked to payments by arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber, who handed over the million marks. Strauss' children, one of whom is a minister in the current Bavarian CSU-run government, have denied any wrongdoing. Germany is seeking to extradite Schreiber, also suspected of tax evasion, from Canada. Another key player in the armored car deal, Ludwig-Holger Pfahls, then state secretary at the defense ministry and former head of Germany's domestic security service, has disappeared in Asia after an arrest warrant was issued by Augsburg prosecutors who suspect him of corruption and tax evasion. He was also involved in the sale of the Leuna oil refinery to France's Elf Aquitaine, which has been the target of a long-running French probe into suspect commission payments. Most of the CDU's current leaders held senior positions under Kohl, and although most have denied any knowledge and called for the matter to be cleared up urgently the bond of loyalty to the former colossus appears to be eroding rapidly. The steady stream of revelations is making it increasingly tough for the CDU to ``sit out'' the crisis, a tactic used so often by Kohl during his 16 years in power. Current CDU leader Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of Kohl's closest advisers, has admitted to the existence of a ``gray zone'' in party finances. SPD HAS ITS OWN PROBLEMS But Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling Social Democrats have been rocked by corruption scandals of their own, with the latest claiming the head of his successor as premier of Lower Saxony state, Gerhard Glogowski, last week. Glogowski fell victim to reports that he had accepted favors including free flights and corporate hospitality. Before quitting he admitted having made mistakes but in his resignation statement he denied he was corrupt and said he was stepping down to protect himself, his family and his party. But there can be little doubt that Schroeder acted quickly to remove a man whose hold on office looked increasingly tenuous and who was driving the CDU scandal out of the headlines. Anti-corruption campaigners say German public life lacks openness and would benefit from new freedom of information laws and better coordination among tax authorities, prosecutors and courts responsible for investigating corruption. ``We are pushing very hard for a freedom of information law,'' said Wiehen of Transparency International. ``In Germany the tradition is to consider official information secret unless it is declared public. It should be the other way round.'' Although Schroeder stepped down as premier of Lower Saxony only just over a year ago to become chancellor, there has been no suggestion so far that he might suffer personal damage. But the mood of the moment has not been lost on him. Recently he was due to speak at the official opening of the new Berlin headquarters of Germany's powerful industrial lobby when a man approached and gave him an envelope with a note saying it was time for Schroeder to give his speech. He walked to the podium, then paused before handing the envelope back. ``In times like these, you never know what might be in an envelope like this,'' he quipped, getting a good laugh from an audience who knew exactly what he was talking about. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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