Some of the leading names in France's political and business elite went on trial yesterday over an arms-dealing scandal that could shine light on the murkiest dealings of the French state.

The son of the late President Mitterrand joined 41 prominent figures in court for the start of the “Angolagate” trial, concerning the alleged illicit sale of £450 million of Russian weapons and equipment to Angola in the 1990s. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 61, Jacques Attali, the intellectual and banker who advised the late President, and Paul-Loup Sulitzer, a popular thriller writer, are among the well-known accused who have generated huge interest in the proceedings.

But the main defendants are Arkadi Gaydamak, a Russian-Israeli billionaire, and Pierre Falcone, a French businessman, who have in turn implied that the French Government knew of and allowed a secret arms channel to Angola after a UN embargo blocked official French sales.

Under deals allegedly arranged by Mr Falcone, Mr Gaydamak is claimed to have procured and shipped 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 landmines, 12 helicopters and 6 naval vessels to help President Dos Santos of Angola to win a long-running civil war. Mr Gaydamak - one of the models for Lord of War, a film starring Nicolas Cage about an arms merchant - has stayed in Israel and is being tried in his absence. Gilles-William Goldnadel, his lawyer, said that his client did not deny the sales and would attend the trial next month if France promised that he would not be imprisoned.

Mr Gaydamak claimed that France had no jurisdiction because the arms, shipped from Russia and Eastern Europe to Angola, never entered French territory. To the anger of the prosecution, this argument was supported by Hervé Morin, the Defence Minister, in a letter to Mr Falcone's lawyer last July - reflecting unease in the French Government over a case that threatens ties with Angola and access to its vast oil and diamond wealth.

Mr Dos Santos, who is alleged by the investigating judge to have made millions from the deals, had been hoping that the case would be dropped after Mr Sarkozy visited Luanda last May. The President promised then that France would “turn the page on the misunderstandings of the past”.

French involvement with the former Portuguese colony started in 1993, when President Dos Santos was losing the war against the Unita rebel movement. On the defensive, the Angolan leader called on supporters within the Mitterrand presidency to help. While the UN embargo precluded official military aid, the Falcone-Gaydamak operation was arranged - with or without official knowledge.

A lawyer for the Angolan Government asked the court yesterday to throw out the case because it breached French laws protecting the military secrets of foreign states. No Angolan officials are being tried, but the prosecution insists that French law applies because illicit arms trading was carried out from Paris by Mr Falcone, 54. Brenco, his company, was alleged to have worked with a Slovakian company to ship the weapons.

Mr Falcone is alleged to have opened doors by showering millions of dollars, in foreign bank accounts and in suitcases of cash, on influential personalities. These allegedly included Georges Fenech, 53, a judge who was a prosecutor in Lyons in 1997 at the time of the alleged offence.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand is alleged to have been vital to the deal because of his background as the former chief of his father's “Africa cell”, a unit at the Élysée Palace that managed French relations with its African allies. As the alleged gobetween for Mr Falcone and Mr Dos Santos, he is accused of “complicity in illegal trade and embezzlement” and taking bribes worth $2.6million.

Mr Mitterrand, who had a nervous breakdown after spending three weeks in police custody in 2000, told The Times that Mr Falcone had paid him for legitimate services as an adviser with Angola well after he had left his father's employment in 1992.

The most senior politician among the accused is Charles Pasqua, 81, a former Interior Minister and baron of the Gaullist party of Jacques Chirac. Charged with selling his influence for more than a million dollars, Mr Pasqua said that he had been the victim of a conspiracy. “Everything has been done to implicate me in an affair that I had nothing to do with,” Mr Pasqua said as the trial opened.

The two main defendants on the arms dealing charge face a maximum prison sentence of ten years. Those accused of selling influence could be jailed for five years, although suspended sentences are more common in France for such convictions.

Mr Mitterrand received a 30-month suspended sentence for tax fraud over the Angola case in 2004. Commentators suggested that the trial might collapse before it reaches its expected five-month term.

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