AFP - A former French minister convicted in the arms-to-Angola affair said Thursday that ex-president Jacques Chirac knew about the trade, holding up secret documents he claimed prove his case.

Charles Pasqua, who served as interior minister in the 1980s and again in the 1990s, named Chirac and other senior government officials who he said were aware of the weapons sales and did nothing to stop them.

"In 1995, Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, Charles Millon, Herve de Charette were informed of the arms sales to Angola," said Pasqua, now a senator.

Villepin was Chirac's chief of staff at the time, Millon was the defence minister and De Charette foreign minister.

"None of these people were questioned by an investigating magistrate. None opposed these operations when they were informed of them," he said.

Pasqua showed documents from the DGSE counter-espionage agency addressed to 13 top officials which he claimed detailed the arms sales to Angola and confirmed that they were illegal.

"How can it be that if the courts consider these arms sales illegal that these officials are not prosecuted?" said Pasqua.

Villepin and former prime minister Alain Juppe have said they knew nothing about the arms sales.

Pasqua, 82, was sentenced in October to one year in jail, plus two more years suspended, and fined 100,000 euros (150,000 dollars) for his involvement in the Angola arms affair.

A total of 42 people went on trial for taking millions of euros in "consultant fees" from the sale of weapons to President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos's regime for use in the 1979-2002 bush war against UNITA rebels.

The huge arsenal included 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, and six warships and was worth 790 million dollars.

The arms originated in the former Soviet bloc and were sent to Africa in breach of French law through a French-based firm and its eastern European subsidiary.

Sales began when Socialist president Francois Mitterrand was in power in 1993 and continued until 1998, three years after Chirac's election.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 62, who was an advisor on Africa to his president father, was given a two-year suspended sentence and a 375,000-euro fine.

Although no Angolan officials were indicted, court papers alleged that Dos Santos and his inner circle received millions of dollars in kickbacks.

Pasqua said he would file a complaint against the lead investigating judge in the case, Philippe Courroye, and planned to lobby parliament to allow all secret documents concerning arms sales to be released.