Former SNC-Lavalin Vice-President Riadh Ben Aissa has been arraigned in a Montreal courtroom on various fraud charges after being extradited from Switzerland this week.
Aissa recently pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges in Switzerland, admitting to using the Swiss banking system to funnel bribes to Saadi Gadhafi, the son of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, to help SNC-Lavalin win contracts in Libya.
A Swiss court sentenced him to time already served.
While in jail, UPAC, Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, laid 16 charges against Aissa for his role in an alleged $22.5-million plot to defraud the McGill University Health Centre in the construction of the Glen Yard superhospital.
The charges include fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, defrauding the government, forgery and money laundering.
Aissa arrived in Montreal Wednesday afternoon and was in police custody up until his hearing Thursday afternoon. He was remanded into custody following the appearance after the crown prosecutor objected to his release.
Aissa will be back in court Tuesday for a bail hearing. The preliminary inquiry in his trail is scheduled to begin in March 2015.
There other nine other people accused in the same conspiracy plot Aissa is alleged to have participated in include Arthur Porter, and his wife Pamela, former McGill executive Yanai Elbaz and his brother Yohann, and ex-SNC Lavalin president and CEO Pierre Duhaime.
