Ex-Congo leader on trial

Pascal Lissouba has dismissed the trial as a joke

A court in Brazzaville, capital of the Congo, has put former President Pascal Lissouba on trial, accusing him of high treason and embezzlement.

The charges relate to the awarding of oil exploitation contracts during his time in office in the 1990s.

Mr Lissouba, who lives in exile in London and is being tried in absentia, dismissed the trial as a joke.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Lissouba said he intended to return to Congo-Brazzaville soon, but would not specify when.

Charges

The former president and four of his former ministers are accused of selling off oil at extremely low prices when the government signed a $150m deal with the American company Oxypetroleum in 1993.

President Sassou ousted Pascal Lissouba in 1997

The government in Brazzaville sold the US company 50m barrels of crude oil at $3 a barrel, when the world price of oil at the time was $14 per barrel.

The prosecution alleges Mr Lissouba and his ministers undersold Congolese oil for personal gains.

But on Thursday, the court dismissed cases against former finance minister, Clement Mouamba, and a former cabinet head, Claudine Munari.

The court ruled that the two only carried out Lissouba's orders and were innocent of wrongdoing themselves.

According to the charges, the proceeds never went into the public treasury but were later partly transferred to a private Belgian bank account and partly used to finance the former president's election campaign.

Mr Lissouba denies this, saying the money earned from the deal was used to pay the salaries of civil servants and prepare for the elections.

Pascal Lissouba was elected in 1992 but was driven out of Brazzaville in the civil war in 1997 by the forces of his rival, Denis Sassou-Nguessou, who is now president.