FORMER French prime minister Edouard Balladur was acquitted of corruption charges by a French court yesterday, after being accused of receiving kickbacks from arms deals.

His former defence minister Francois Leotard was convicted for misuse of assets and handed a suspended two-year prison sentence plus a €100,000 (£86,000) fine.

The pair were charged in 2017 with “complicity in the misuse of corporate assets” over the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia between 1993 and 1995.

The allegations against Mr Balladur and Mr Leotard surfaced during an investigation into a 2002 bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, in which 15 people were killed on a bus transporting French engineers.

French investigators believed the bombing may have been carried out as revenge for stopping commission payments for the arms deals.

Mr Balladur was alleged to have set up an elaborate scheme using intermediaries who took commissions on contracts signed with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and then paid back some of the money with illicit cash transfers.

Prosecutors alleged that the commissions totalled 550 million francs (approx €117m or £101m), some of which was funnelled back to Mr Balladur’s presidential campaign.

He lost the 1995 election to Jacques Chirac, who allegedly cut off the payments negotiated by the previous government.