French ex-minister grilled over secret bank accounts

French lawmakers grilled ex-budget minister Jerome Cahuzac today about his secret foreign bank accounts, but he refused to give details or comment on what other government officials may have known.
Cahuzac, who resigned in disgrace in March and is facing tax fraud charges, had been at the centre of the biggest scandal to hit President Francois Hollande's Socialist government since he took office last year.
Once in charge of battling tax evasion and fraud, Cahuzac has admitted to repeatedly lying about overseas accounts in Switzerland and Singapore said to contain around USD 770,000.
But he refused to answer questions about the accounts during parliamentary hearings into the scandal, saying he would not comment while a criminal investigation was ongoing.

"I regret that I cannot answer... Because of the judicial investigation underway," Cahuzac, who appeared tired and emotional during the hearing, said when asked for details on the accounts, bank transfers and criminal probe.
The parliamentary investigation is probing whether Hollande or other senior officials may have been aware of the accounts and how the government handled the crisis.

Cahuzac, who has been expelled from the Socialist Party and lost his seat in parliament, said he was not in a position to know how much Hollande or other top officials knew about his accounts.
He said he thought his bosses had believed his strenuous denials of having the accounts.

"I fear that I my denials were so strong that I was able to convince some of them," he said.
Cahuzac had earlier on French radio promised to answer the panel "as honestly as possible" but also described himself as a "scapegoat for all political corruption".
The questioning came a day after the lower house of the French parliament approved a new law on transparency laws rules that opened the assets of parliamentarians to public scrutiny.