A former SNC-Lavalin executive who paid kickbacks to foreign officials and pocketed millions has lost an appeal of his 2019 fraud conviction. Sami Bebawi, 76, had appealed his conviction of the grounds that evidence gathered through an RCMP undercover operation and wiretap targeting his former lawyer -- who was part of a plan to bribe a government witness -- should not have been admitted. Bebawi leaves a courtroom in Montreal on Feb. 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
MONTREAL – A former SNC-Lavalin vice-president found guilty in 2019 of bribing foreign officials and pocketing millions of dollars has lost his appeal.
Sami Bebawi, 76, appealed his conviction of the grounds that evidence gathered through an RCMP undercover operation targeting his former lawyer should not have been admitted.
His lawyers also argued that some of the acts for which he was convicted shouldn’t have been considered fraud as they didn’t put his victims financial interests at risk.
The Quebec Court of Appeal rejected those arguments, but the court gave Bebawi more time to pay back the money he earned from his crimes working for the Montreal-based engineering company.
He will now have two years from today’s ruling to pay back $24.69 million, instead of six months.
Bebawi was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in January 2020 after a jury found him guilty of five fraud and corruption charges.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2023.
