Exec in Canada scandal admits fraud

OTTAWA - A former advertising executive at the centre of a corruption scandal rocking Canada's minority Liberal government pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 15 charges of fraud totalling more than $C1.5 million ($1.7 million).

Paul Coffin, the first person to be charged in the scandal, admitted to a Montreal court that he had falsified invoices and billed Ottawa for work his firm never did.

Coffin's company was one of a number of Liberal-friendly firms in the French-speaking province of Quebec that received $C100 million, often for little or no work.

The funds came from a federal advertising programme designed to counter separatism in Quebec after a referendum in 1995 only narrowly failed to back the idea of independence.

The scandal has badly hurt the Liberals of Prime Minister Paul Martin while boosting separatist forces in Quebec.

A public inquiry into the scandal has heard that Liberal Party officials in Quebec demanded kickbacks in return for lucrative government contracts.

Coffin, who had been due to go on trial next week, will be sentenced later this year. Prosecutor Francois Drolet told reporters he might demand a jail sentence.

The fraud trial of two other key figures in the scandal -- former advertising executive Jean Brault and former senior federal bureaucrat Chuck Guite -- is due to start on October 3.

- REUTERS