PARIS – The son of a late French president, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and 40 other people charged with trafficking arms to war-riven Angola or taking kickbacks faced judges Monday in a long-awaited trial in Paris.

Prosecutors allege that the two key suspects – French businessman Pierre Falcone and Arkady Gaydamak, an Israeli tycoon based in France at the time – organized the sale of Russian arms to Angola from 1993-2000, for a total of US$791 million, in breach of French government rules.

The other suspects, including the son of former President Francois Mitterrand and other members of France's political elite, are accused of receiving money or gifts – undeclared to tax authorities – from a company run by Falcone in exchange for political or commercial favors.

The courthouse was thronged with journalists and others; judicial officials moved the proceedings into a bigger hall to accommodate the crowd.

Monday's session was expected to focus on procedural matters. All the main defendants were on hand except Gaydamak, who is the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Gaydamak's lawyer, William Goldnagel, said his client – a candidate for mayor of Jerusalem – did not want to do prison time and was planning to travel to Paris for the proceedings next month.

“My client is not a dishonest man; he's not an arms vendor,” Goldnagel told reporters.

The case is sensitive for Angola. A lawyer for the country, Francis Teitgen, said Monday he would seek to have the trial annulled “to protect the rights attached to its sovereignty.”

Angola considers numerous documents used by the prosecution to be defense secrets, Teitgen said. Neither Angola nor any of its citizens is a party to case.

Investigators say the corruption grew into a tangle of laundered money and parallel diplomacy that left a stain on France's relations with Africa.

Lawyers for Falcone and Gaydamak argue there is no reason to pursue the case in a French court because the weapons never transited French territory. But Prosecutors cite the use of a French bank and French companies in the deals.

A lawyer for Jean-Christophe Mitterrand insisted in comments published Monday in the daily Le Parisien that his client never received bribes – only payment for advising Falcone's company about Angola. Mitterrand was his father's Africa adviser in the years preceding the arms deals.

Another defendant, former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, said on French radio Europe-1 on Monday that he had nothing to do with the events in question. He said the case was trumped up to thwart him from running for president in 2002. Pasqua is charged with “passive arms trafficking” and “receiving misused funds.”

Pasqua, Gaydamak, Falcone and Mitterrand face a maximum of 10 years in prison and thousands of euros (dollars) in fines if convicted.

Other suspects are accused primarily of “receiving misused funds;” the 468-page indictment describes envelopes of cash changing hands and a shopping list of Kalashnikov rifles, land mines and tanks.

Angola's 1979-2002 civil war served as a Cold War proxy conflict between the Marxist army of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and the forces of U.S.-backed rebel leader Jonas Savimbi.

The trial is expected to last until March.

Associated Press writers Pierre-Antoine Souchard and Verena von Derschau in Paris contributed to this report.