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The RCMP affidavit said the payment ended up in three bank accounts, all of them held by Dorion Business Ltd., a company owned by Saadi Gaddafi. The transfer was labeled, “Consultant commissions paid by the Societé Canadienne S&C Lavalin.”

The man accused of making the payments, Riadh Ben Aissa, was then SNC-Lavalin’s vice-president. He has since left the company and is now jailed in Geneva without charge while the Swiss investigate his financial dealings in North Africa.

The former Canadian executive and Mr. Gaddafi “maintained an amicable and mutually beneficial relationship over several years,” said the affidavit, based partly on the results of an ongoing probe in Switzerland, where Mr. Ben Aissa did his banking.

Investigators tracked the flow of bribes from SNC-Lavalin accounts in Canada and the United Kingdom to offshore companies controlled by Mr. Ben Aissa. The money was then allegedly transferred to offshore companies owned by Mr. Gaddafi.

“It is alleged that these sums of money were paid as compensation for having influenced the granting of major contracts to SNC-Lavalin Int.,” Cpl. Brenda Makad, a member of the RCMP anti-corruption squad, wrote in the sworn statement. “Ben Aissa offered bribes to the dictator’s son with the goal of securing the granting of contracts for construction/engineering within Libya.”

The payoffs “served to buy yachts for the benefit of Saadi Gaddafi,” the corporal wrote. One of the boats was identified by police as the Hokulani. A sleek 45-metre superyacht by that name was sold in 2011. The asking price was $28.5-million. It has two VIP suites, a Jacuzzi, an entertainment room with a flat screen TV and accommodation for 10.