American political consultant, Paul Manafort has admitted to a role in France's 'Karachi affair', and that he was paid by an intermediary in the 1994 arms sales for advising the campaign of French presidential hopeful Edouard Balladur.
According to The Express Tribune, Manafort, who worked for Republican presidential campaigns of the 1980s, also told investigators he met with officials in Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential campaign.
French investigators suspect a web of corruption behind the sale of submarines from France to Pakistan, with illegal funds going to the Balladur campaign in a scandal known as the 'Karachi affair,' the report said.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was a cabinet minister and then Prime Minister Balladur's spokesperson at the time, is linked to the affair, the report added.
Investigators say Manafort, his public relations company or his associates received a total of at least 200,000 dollars between September 1994 and August 1995.