Mitterrand’s son in arms dealing probe

A son of the late French president Francois Mitterrand was jailed and placed under judicial investigation late on Thursday by judges investigating illegal weapons sales to Angola, agencies reported on Friday. According to the reports Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 54, who was his father’s adviser on African affairs from 1986 to 1992, was under investigation for the “misuse of power, complicity in the traffic of arms and the misuse of company money”. Mitterand is being investigated over cash payments he allegedly received from arms-dealer Pierre Falcone and subsequent money-laundering. French officials were quoted as saying that, investigators suspected Falcone paid Mitterrand hundreds of thousands of francs for using his network of contacts in Africa to facilitate sales of weapons to Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in 1993 and 1994.