The scandal blew up when Interior Minister Charles Pasqua endorsed Édouard Balladur, who was Jacques Chirac's rival in the 1995 French presidential election.
In April 2007, 42 people were indicted, including Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, Jacques Attali, Charles Pasqua,Jean-Charles Marchiani, and the writer Paul-Loup Sulitzer for having received illegal payments from Falcone.
In 2009, 36 individuals were convicted of various levels of involvement, Charles Pasqua and Jean-Charles Marchiani were found guilty of taking money from Gaydamak and Falcone that they knew was proceeds of crime.
President José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola met with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA in Bicesse/Portugal and signed the Bicesse Accords, a peace agreement that attempted unsuccessfully to end the Angolan Civil War, on May 31, 1991, with the mediation of the Portuguese government.
The accords attempted to demobilise the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).
[2] At the same time, the Cuban troops that had helped MPLA forces to push back the South African army and UNITA rebels during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, completed their withdrawal from Angola.
[4] With the MPLA on the verge of defeat, dos Santos contacted Jean-Bernard Curial, the former French Socialist Party Southern Africa expert, and asked him to come to Luanda.
At that time Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was free of government charges until May 1992, and had already signed a contract with a private French company (La Compagnie Générale des Eaux).
Later the Angolan government gave him an official mission to supervise supplying his army with arms from the East Central European country Slovakia and the population with food and medicine.
[5] The Angolan government bought USD $47 million worth of ammunition, mortar, and artillery from the Slovakian company ZTS-OZOS on November 7, 1993, which dos Santos received in December.
French police arrested Jean-Christophe Mitterrand on December 21 for his supposed role in the arms deal but released him on January 11 after his mother had paid his $725,000 bail.
[8] In April 2007, the investigative magistrate Philippe Courroye [fr] indicted 42 people, including Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, Jacques Attali, Charles Pasqua and Jean-Charles Marchiani, for having received illegal payments from Pierre Falcone.
[11] Gaydamak and Falcone were found guilty of illegal arms deals, tax fraud, money laundering, embezzlement and others, sentenced to six years in prison and multi-million-euro fines each.
[17] The Court of Appeal particularly recognized that they had acted under the authority of a "state mandate" issued by the Angolan government, which sought to "ensure the survival" of the country and that it was "in that context and while the situation worsened" that it had asked Pierre Falcone and Arcadi Gaydamak to acquire arms, food and medicine.