FILE: Trial opens for six people involved in the 'Karachi affair' A trial has opened against six people in the so-called 'Karachi affair' in which French investigators suspect a web of corruption behind arms sales in the 1990s, with kickbacks allegedly going to fund a failed presidential election campaign by former prime minister Edouard Balladur.\\nHe and former defence minister Francois Leotard, 77, were charged in 2017 with "complicity in misuse of corporate assets" over the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia when Balladur was prime minister, between 1993 and 1995. FILE IMAGES