AFP - Anti-corruption activists welcomed on Wednesday a groundbreaking decision by a French judge to investigate whether three African presidents plundered state coffers to buy luxury cars and posh homes in France.
  
"(This is) a historic decision that announces the end of impunity for corrupt leaders in the world," said Daniel Lebegue, the head of the French branch of corruption watchdog Transparency International.
  
The judge's decision late Tuesday to launch a formal probe came in response to a lawsuit filed by Transparency International France against the presidents of Gabon and Congo -- both former French colonies -- and Equatorial Guinea.
  
This was the first time the group had been accepted as a plaintiff in such a case and Lebegue said the move was a "considerable breakthrough in international law" that would encourage activists in other countries.
  
"TI (Transparency International) has hundreds of branches across the world, who have been waiting to take the same type of action," he said.
  
The anti-graft group filed its lawsuit last December against Presidents Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo -- both close allies of France -- and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.
  
It accused the leaders, who deny any wrongdoing, of acquiring posh homes in Paris and on the French Riviera and buying luxury cars with embezzled public money.
  
The African leaders stand accused of embezzlement, misuse of public funds and money-laundering in relation to "the acquisition of very substantial property and assets in France," said the plaintiff's lawyer William Bourdon when he announced the suit.
  
Transparency International had filed suit twice before, in March 2007 and July last year, to denounce the Gabonese president's acquisition of luxury homes in France, sparking a wave of protests from his supporters at home.
  
The initial complaints also targeted President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso and his Angolan counterpart Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
  
The Paris prosecutor's office last year ordered a preliminary police investigation into the allegations, but finally dismissed both lawsuits for lack of evidence.
  
According to French media, the police report established that Bongo and his family owned 33 properties in France, including a villa in Paris bought in 2007 for 18.8 million euros (24 million dollars), and that Sassou Nguesso owned at least three vast properties in the French capital.
  
But it did not establish the origin of the funds used to purchase the properties, for lack of a warrant, according to Le Monde newspaper.
  
In their latest suit, the anti-graft activists registered as civil plaintiffs in the case and sucessfully forced French authorities to appoint a judge to take the investigation further.
  
The police report on Bongo's French assets has fuelled tensions between the two countries, with Gabon threatening to review relations with France.