A former Miss France has been charged in a long-running inquiry over alleged ill-gotten wealth by Gabon’s former strongman ruler, Omar Bongo, and several of his children, prosecutors said Wednesday. Sonia Rolland has been charged with receipt of embezzled public funds for accepting from Bongo an apartment worth 800,000 euros ($752,000) in the chic 16th Arrondissement of Paris in 2003. Rolland, who was 22 at the time, had “obviously recognised that she was naive but contests any wrongdoing,” her lawyer, Charles Morel, told newsmen. French prosecutors have also charged four of Bongo’s children with embezzlement and corruption on suspicion that they knowingly benefited from a fraudulently-acquired empire of real estate and other assets worth at least 85 million euros. According to French daily Liberation, Rolland, now an actress, told investigators last year that the apartment was a gift for her patronage of Miss contests in Africa.

Source: The Times June 01, 2022 18:58 UTC