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Hernán Bravo will be the first former official of Costa Rica’s state power and telecom monopoly ICE to face charges in relation to the on-going ICE-Alcatel corruption scandal in Costa Rica, local press reported.
In December 2006, a US federal grand jury indicted a former executive of French telecoms equipment supplier Alcatel for allegedly paying US$2.5mn in bribes to Bravo, a former ICE board member, in order to win a mobile telephony infrastructure contract.
The former Alcatel executive, Christian Sapsizian, is alleged to have offered the ICE official 1.5-2% of the contract’s value. Alcatel won the contract in August 2001 worth US$149mn to install 400,000 GSM mobile lines for ICE.
There are rumors that Bravo may plead guilty as charged and pay more than US$1mn to the state in return for a short trial, the newspaper reports said.
Bravo is said to have received US$800,000 from Alcatel.
Alcatel has since merged with US-based tech company Lucent, forming Alcatel-Lucent.”
Cellular News
February 7, 2007