Nude dancers, porn films and many, many sex workers. Invoices show that SNC-Lavalin and security firm Garda World were involved in some unorthodox spending to spoil the libidinous son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi during his visit to Canada in 2008.

“We needed to see to his security, and it degenerated,” Garda spokesperson Isabelle Panelli recalled in an interview with La Presse about the debauchery surrounding Saadi Gadhafi when he travelled in Canada at SNC-Lavalin’s invitation.

Details of the visit were revealed in the preliminary inquiry into bribery charges against Stephane Roy, a former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin. The charges were stayed on Feb. 19, so the details can now be published.

In 2015, Radio-Canada reported that a former SNC-Lavalin executive stated, in the context of a civil action against the company, that the firm had paid for sex workers for Saadi Gadhafi.

But the evidence gathered by the RCMP and revealed in the Roy case goes much further. It reveals for the first time the extent of the spending and how it was openly recorded by representatives of the two Quebec companies.

The evidence also paints the portrait of a dictator’s son who, rather than working on development projects for his country as he was intended to, spent day after day purchasing sexual services.

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Saadi Gadhafi, who was responsible for special forces and an engineering corps in his father’s army, was considered an important partner for SNC-Lavalin, which made billions of dollars over the years through public contracts in Libya.

“It was common knowledge that we paid Saadi Gadhafi, that we looked after him for very specific reasons, not as an act of charity,” said Riadh Ben Aissa, a former executive of SNC-Lavalin who was responsible for projects in Libya and who testified at Roy’s preliminary inquiry. Ben Aissa had himself been convicted in Switzerland of bribery in connection with the Gadhafi regime.

Saadi Gadhafi had previously been in Canada in 2001, 2005 and 2006. But at the beginning of 2008, at SNC-Lavalin’s invitation, he came to Montreal and Toronto for a stay of several months. He said he wanted to learn more about North American business practices, improve his English, and meet mayors and other politicians.

Saadi Gadhafi said he was working on a free-trade zone, a “new Hong Kong” in his country for foreign investors.

SNC-Lavalin hired the Montreal security firm Garda World to ensure the foreign dignitary’s security during his trip. “The client SNC-Lavalin commissioned us for security. Four bodyguards were contracted for this work, not regular employees,” Garda’s Panelli told La Presse.

Saadi Gadhafi never put his hand in his own pocket, according to what the preliminary inquiry heard. The bodyguards paid for everything, often through a cash fund supplied by SNC-Lavalin, and they noted all expenses so the fund would be refilled or they would be reimbursed, an RCMP investigator told the court.

The accounting of expenses, done at Garda and passed on to SNC-Lavalin for repayment, showed the numerous purchases of sexual services in different Canadian cities, according to the evidence at the preliminary inquiry. “There was about 30-something thousand spent on escort services,” officer Paul Vincelette-de-la-Boessiere told the court, as he described documents seized by police.

What the bodyguards discreetly called “accompaniment services” in their expense reports could cost between $600 and $7,500 a session. Invoices from the agency Carman Fox & Friends in Vancouver, found in documents seized by police, displayed the image of a nude woman.

Carman Fox & Friends, which describes itself as “the best escort service in the world,” on its own provided almost $10,000 in services to Gadhafi during a brief visit to the west coast, according to the evidence in court.

The bodyguards also took care of expenses in the dancer bar Club Wanda’s, on De Maisonneuve Blvd. in Montreal, including two bottles of Sassicaia 1998 at more than $600 each.

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They twice picked up the bill for the rental of a box at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, for a Raptors game and a Spice Girls concert. And they advanced thousands of dollars to Saadi Gadhafi when he needed pocket money. At the hotel, they paid for his voracious consumption of films.

According to the inquiry, all expense memos were sent to SNC-Lavalin for payment. The company allocated the costs to its construction projects in Libya. Forensic accountant Sophie Dery, who analyzed the RCMP’s file, had not seen anything like it in a firm like SNC-Lavalin.

“I never saw in my career accounts of escorts, the purchase of luxury goods, considerable sums for entertainment, the purchase of erotic films,” she said at the inquiry.

“These were unusual expenses, there was no logical business reason for them,” she said.

“Also, advances were paid to M. Gadhafi, who is a public political figure. These are not customary expenses.”

The cost of the 2008 trip reached $1.95 million. Auditors at the firm Deloitte, hired to examine the state of SNC-Lavalin’s finances, asked questions about it. “I had to understand how Garda could cost this much,” an auditor said in an email that was part of the evidence.

Roy replied that all the expenses were justified. “I have the invoices if necessary,” he said.

In his testimony at the preliminary inquiry, Ben Aissa said he judged the expenses justified at the time. “When you have projects worth $2.5 billion and the potential for another few billion, the company doesn’t have a problem spending two, three million, four million, or no matter how many millions,” he explained.

At a certain point, Garda managers noted what was going on with the bodyguards hired for the contract, and they called a halt to some practices, Panelli said.

“Yes, there were invoices for these things. It put everyone in a funny situation. Some new people saw it and they said, ‘My God, that doesn’t look good.’ And they tightened the management of the contract. And we lost the contract. The client changed vendors.”

Most of the people who were around at the beginning of the contract are no longer with the security firm.

“That’s why we do little bodyguarding today. Because it’s how the person wants to live their life, but it puts us in a position … It’s a fine line,” Panelli said.

SNC-Lavalin did not want to comment on this story.

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