Alfred Sirven, one of the key figures in the Elf corruption trial in France, died of a heart attack at the age of 78, his lawyers said Sunday. Sirven, former number two at the French oil giant, was sentenced to five years in jail in November 2003 and fined one million euros (1.29 million dollars) for embezzling large sums in the early 1990s from a slush fund at the then state-owned concern. He was freed on bail last year pending an appeal whose verdict is due next month.
Sirven died at his home in the Normandy resort of Deauville on Saturday, his lawyers said.
After the corruption allegations at Elf emerged in the late 1990s, Sirven disappeared for four years. He was eventually located in the Philippines and extradited to France in 2001. Reports at the time said that he swallowed the SIM card of his mobile telephone as police arrived, in order to stop investigators tracing his contacts.
In the same year Sirven was given a four year jail term in the trial of former foreign minister Roland Dumas, who was accused of benefiting from the Elf slush fund. Dumas was later cleared on appeal. Sirven was in jail at the start of the main Elf trial in March 2003, in which 37 people faced charges of embezzlement.
He was reported to have told friends that he knew enough "to bring down the Republic 20 times over," but in the end he failed to carry out his implicit threat to name senior politicians who took money from the Elf fund.