Total bribe probe targets Rafsanjani entourage: sources

PARIS (AFP) — A judge investigating alleged bribes by Total has traced suspect funds to a Swiss account held by the secretary to the son of former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, sources said on Friday.

The French judge has banned Total chief executive Christophe de Margerie from meeting the former Iranian president and his son Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, a judicial source said.

Margerie is under investigation over alleged bribes for an Iranian gas contract in 1997, and sources close to the matter indicated that the secretary to Rafsanjani's son was suspected of being the alleged middleman.

This connection had emerged from the questioning on Wednesday of another Total executive at the time, they said.

The executive had identified the secretary as the Iranian resident in Switzerland who allegedly held a Swiss account in which suspect funds had been found.

Investigators are interested in two accounts in Switzerland into which payments of nearly 100 million Swiss francs (60 million euros, 80 million dollars) were paid.