The President of the Ivory Coast, Mr Henri Konan Bedie, has denied he was involved in a business deal aimed at breaking oil sanctions against the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

He said the accusations were lies mounted by his political opponents.

A South African judge investigating the sanctions busting activities of the former racist regime has publicly named Mr Konan Bedie as an intended financial beneficiary of a multi million dollar oil deal aimed at illegally supplying the apartheid state.

The allegations in this case go to the heart of suspicions that some African countries collaborated with apartheid along with the Western governments which openly supported the racist regime in Pretoria.

Abidjan: commercial capital of the Ivory Coast

The charge from South Africa that Mr Konan Bedie was due to receive a commission worth several million US dollars on an illegal oil sanctions breaking deal have provoked a major political row in Ivory Coast.

It's not known if the sanctions busting deal described by a South African judge went ahead as planned but Ivorian opposition parties here have demanded a full explanation of the affair, which allegedly took place in the early 1990s.

The opposition is aware that at the time the Ivory Coast government, most unusually in Africa, openly advocated dialogue with Pretoria.

The alleged oil deal took place when Mr Konan Bedie was the speaker of the parliament and a favourite candidate to become Ivory Coast's president.

Mr Konan Bedie, addressing a meeting of the ruling Ivorian Democratic Party, said the allegations against him were lies.