Ex-ICE Official Faces Bribery Charges in Alcatel Scandal
Hernán Bravo will be the first former official of Costa Rica's state power and telecom monopoly - the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) -  to face charges in relation to the on-going ICE-Alcatel corruption scandal.

In December 2006, a US federal grand jury indicted a former executive of French telecoms equipment supplier Alcatel for allegedly paying us$2.5 million in bribes to Bravo, a former ICE board member, in order to win a mobile telephone infrastructure contract.

The former Alcatel executive, Christian Sapsizian, is alleged to have offered the ICE official 1.5-2% of the contract's value. Alcatel won the contract in August 2001 worth us$149 million to install 400,000 GSM cellular lines for ICE.

There are rumors that Bravo may plead guilty as charged and pay more than us$1 million to the state in return for a short trial. Bravo is said to have received us$800,000 from Alcatel.

Tied to the Alcatel-ICE scandal are also former Costa Rican president, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, who after stepping down as head of the Organization of American States (OAS), returned to Costa Rica and arrested at the airport as he got off his flight from the U.S. Rodriguéz is currently free on bail after spending time in preventive detention (jail) and under house arrest while the investigation of the case continues.

Also implicated in the case are former ICE board member and friend of former president Rodriguéz, José Antonio Lobo, and former Alcatel president, Edgar Valverde, among others.

Alcatel has since merged with US-based tech company Lucent, forming Alcatel-Lucent.