Executive Linked To Blood Scandal

The chairman of French automaker Renault has been indicted for complicity in knowingly distributing blood tainted with the AIDS virus through state-run blood banks, Renault said Monday.

Louis Schweitzer, head of the automaker since 1992, was the latest high-ranking official to be implicated in the long-running investigation of government responsibility for the scandal.

Schweitzer, 53, was chief of staff for then-Premier Laurent Fabius in 1985 when the government knowingly distributed contaminated blood. More than 1,200 hemophiliacs were infected, and more than 400 have died.

Fabius, his former health minister, Edmond Herve, and his former social affairs minister, Georgina Dufoix, all were indicted last year on the same complicity charge, which could bring a 30-year prison sentence.