MONTREAL — The Crown is recommending a prison sentence of nine years for Sami Bebawi, the former SNC-Lavalin executive found guilty of fraud and corruption.
Defence lawyers said in a court hearing today that the appropriate sentence would be six years.
A jury found Bebawi, 73, guilty on Sunday of five charges, including fraud, corruption of foreign officials and laundering proceeds of crime
The Crown said Bebawi was behind a business model that involved kickbacks and payoffs to foreign agents to secure lucrative deals for the Montreal-based engineering giant in Libya, beginning in the late 1990s.
The case centred on several major infrastructure projects and dealings with Saadi Gadhafi, one of the sons of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Bebawi is free pending sentencing, and Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer said he will rule on the sentence on Jan. 10.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2019.
The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
