Post date: Jan 26, 2012 12:51:20 PM
French police arrest PIP implant boss Jean-Claude Mas, whose lawyer says he is sick and waiting for his doctor
SIX-FOUR-LES-PLAGES, FRANCE (JANUARY 26, 2012) (REUTERS) - Jean-Claude Mas, whose breast implant firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) has sparked an international health scandal by using substandard silicone, was arrested on Thursday (January 26) and could be charged with manslaughter, a French police source told Reuters.
He was arrested at around 7 a.m. (0600 GMT) at his home in southern France and police searched the premises of a former partner of his.
Mas' lawyer Yves Haddad said the search was taking place as per the decision by the judge."Because if you take the criminal procedure law, that's what is called for. The judge has decided that's what needs to be done and going well. The search is going very well," he told reporters outside the premises.
Meanwhile, Mas can be held for 48 hours while investigators decide whether to charge him with involuntary manslaughter and causing injury.
Haddad said Mas was sick and waiting for his doctor.
Philippe Courtois, who represents a group of 1,300 people with PIP implants, said it was vital Mas was not allowed to flee justice.
"This is a relief. It's come late, but at least it's happened. He's been placed in preventive detention. Let's see in the coming hours what his interrogation by the investigating magistrate brings. But what we're really hoping for is his formal investigation, but under judicial control or even under remand in custody, just to make sure that he doesn't leave French soil during the investigation," he said.
"It'll be up to the doctors to decide if he can still be held in custody. If it is compatible, he can be held. In that case he can be interrogated by the investigating magistrate. He will be formally placed under investigation with all the coercive measures necessary -- either a judicial control or a remand in custody," he added.
A second PIP executive, former chief financial officer Claude Couty, was also arrested under an investigation that was opened in the southern port city of Marseille, close to PIP's former premises, on Dec. 8.
The probe followed the death from cancer in 2010 of a woman with PIP implants, although health authorities in France and elsewhere have stressed there is no proven link to cancer from the PIP implants.
Mas, who sold some 300,000 implants around the world, has acknowledged that he had used unapproved silicone but dismissed fears that it constituted a health risk.
Earlier in January, leaks from a police document showing that Mas admitted to wilfully lying about the poor quality of PIP's implants and said women filing complaints were just seeking money sparked a furious response in France.
PIP closed down in March 2010 after regulators discovered it was using a non-medical grade silicone, and in December 2011 the French government advised women with PIP implants to have them removed, sparking alarm around the world.
Around 2,700 women in France have filed complaints against Mas, and governments in several other countries such as Britain and Brazil have asked women to visit their doctors for checks.
France has called for tighter European Union regulations on medical devices in wake of the PIP health scare, saying suppliers should be made to carry the same sort of authorisation as suppliers of prescription medicine.
Several PIP managers were already due to appear in court in Marseille in October this year following a prior investigation into fraud and deceptive business practices by the company, once the world's third-largest global seller of breast implants.