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| | Former French minister, UMP official convicted, French News, France, Expatica (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-31) |
 | | Francois Leotard was found guilty of using a fake bank scheme in 1995 to inject money into his now-defunct Republican Party and was given a 10-month suspended jail sentence. |
 | | Leotard, 61, served in two right-wing government, first as culture minister from 1986 to 1988, then as defence minister from 1993 to 1995. |
 | | The court Monday convicted Leotard of setting up a fake loan with an Italian establishment, the Fondo sociale di cooperazione europea, to hide the transfer of 760,000 euros to his party that in fact came from a hidden prime ministerial fund that the Socialist government did away with in 2001. |
| www.expatica.com /source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_id=4697 (492 words) |
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