Another party involved in the scandal surrounding the purchases of the six French-made Lafayette-class frigates mysteriously died last month, the French newspaper Le Monde reported.

According to the paper, Jacques Morisson, a former French Thomson-CSF representative in Taipei, fell out of the window of his apartment June 4.

Although the police claimed that it was simply an accident, Morisson's death looks extremely suspicious, as he was the fifth French person involved in the Lafayette case who has died in an odd fashion.

Last October, Thierry Imbot, the son of a former French intelligence chief who was in Taipei from 1989-94 as a "special officer" of the French Institute in Taipei, died after he fell from a building in South Africa.

His death was said to be an accident.

Last March, Thomson Japan's general manager Jean-Claude Albessard also passed away under mysterious circumstances, as he died from a "sudden cancer."

According to Christine Deviers-Joncour, ex-mistress to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, two other parties responsible for money laundering in the Lafayette case were killed in a mysterious car accident in South Africa.

The Lafayette case was linked to the French electronics firm Thomson-CSF after investigators had discovered that Thomson Taiwan's office manager Andrew Wang Chuan-pu (¨L¶Ç®ú), Imbot, and Albessard had all left Taiwan immediately following navy captain Yin Ching-feng's (¤¨²M·¬) as yet unexplained murder on Dec. 8, 1993.

With acknowledgement to Taipei Times Online.