Cana­di­an en­gi­neer­ing gi­ant SNC-Lavalin, which is em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy in T&T, is seek­ing to re­cov­er mil­lions of dol­lars from a for­mer com­pa­ny ex­ec­u­tive and a con­sul­tant, who the com­pa­ny ac­cuse of us­ing Lavalin funds to bankroll an il­le­gal plot to smug­gle mem­bers of the Gad­hafi fam­i­ly out of Libya in 2011.

The com­pa­ny filed a mo­tion in Que­bec last week claim­ing for­mer ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent Ri­adh Ben Ais­sa hired Cyn­thia Vanier in June 2011 as part of a clan­des­tine plot, pay­ing her in ex­cess of CAN$1.8 mil­lion to arrange the move of Saa­di Gad­hafi and his fam­i­ly out of Libya –con­trary to UN as­set freezes and trav­el bans.SNC is seek­ing to re­coup that mon­ey from Vanier and her com­pa­ny, Vanier Con­sult­ing. SNC is al­so seek­ing an ad­di­tion­al CAN$202,333 from Ben Ais­sa alone.

"We be­lieve that there were il­le­gal acts com­mit­ted with funds that be­long to SNC-Lavalin," com­pa­ny spokesper­son Leslie Quin­ton told CBC News on Fri­day. "We are ask­ing Mrs. Vanier and Vanier Con­sul­tants for CAN$1.8 mil­lion. We are al­so ask­ing for an­oth­er CAN$200,000 (from Ben Ais­sa), which the com­pa­ny was oblig­ed to pay un­der the guise of a con­struc­tion cost, when in fact it was pay­ments for a con­do­mini­um that be­longed to, sup­pos­ed­ly, Saa­di Gad­hafi."

SNC-Lavalin is seek­ing CAN$1.8 mil­lion from Cyn­thia Vanier and her com­pa­ny.None of the al­le­ga­tions against Vanier or Ben Ais­sa have been proven in court, and Vanier has al­ways de­nied in­volve­ment in the al­leged hu­man smug­gling plot.

She re­turned home to Cana­da in April af­ter be­ing jailed in Mex­i­co for 18 months, ac­cused of fal­si­fy­ing pass­ports and lead­ing a crim­i­nal plot to smug­gle Gad­hafi in­to the coun­try. She was re­leased af­ter a Mex­i­co court ruled her le­gal and hu­man rights had been vi­o­lat­ed dur­ing the course of her ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion.

Ben Ais­sa has not com­ment­ed on the al­le­ga­tions and re­mains jailed in Switzer­land where he is ac­cused of laun­der­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars from the Gad­hafi regime. He is al­so fac­ing pros­e­cu­tion on fraud charges in Cana­da over al­leged pay­ments tied to the con­struc­tion of the McGill Uni­ver­si­ty Health Cen­tre.

T&T's High Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da Philip Buxo has de­nied al­le­ga­tions that he used his cur­rent po­si­tion to pro­mote the in­ter­ests of his for­mer em­ploy­er, SNC-Lav­ilin, which is in the run­ning to be cho­sen to build a $1.5 bil­lion hos­pi­tal in Pe­nal.

Buxo worked as di­rec­tor of the Cari­com Re­gion En­er­gy and In­fra­struc­ture Di­vi­sion of SNC-Lavalin, which has been banned by the World Bank Group for ten years from bid­ding on con­tracts which it fund­ed. The World Bank Bank Group banned SNC-Lav­ilin and over 100 of its af­fli­at­ed com­pa­nies in con­nec­tion with fraud and cor­rup­tion re­lat­ing to projects in Cam­bo­dia and Bangladesh.

In its court fil­ing, the com­pa­ny cites an RCMP war­rant ob­tained to search SNC's Mon­tre­al head­quar­ters in April 2012. It al­so cites emails that Vanier al­leged­ly sent to Ben Ais­sa's fi­nan­cial con­troller, Stephane Roy, that al­leged­ly lay out de­tails of a plan to smug­gle the son of Libya's then dic­ta­tor out of the coun­try, un­der false names, to a new life in hid­ing."We be­lieve that there were il­le­gal acts com­mit­ted with funds that be­long to SNC Lavalin."–Com­pa­ny spokesper­son Leslie Quin­ton

SNC as­serts that Vanier was hired un­der a fake con­tract and was not on a "fact find­ing" mis­sion to Libya in Ju­ly 2011, but rather used that as a cov­er sto­ry.