U.S. Financier Soros To Stand Trial By VERENA VON DERSCHAU= Associated Press Writer= PARIS (AP) _ A Parisian investigating magistrate has ordered U.S. financier George Soros and three others to stand trial for their alleged roles in a 1988 insider trading scheme, judicial sources said Friday. After a 12-year investigation, a French magistrate on Thursday dropped charges against seven people and ordered four others to stand trial in 2001, judicial sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear what charges the four would face, nor what sentences might be meted out if any of the four convicted. The sources could not provide further details. Le Monde newspaper reported in its Saturday-dated edition that American billionaire and philanthropist Soros was one of those suspected of benefiting from privileged information during an operation to try to buy part up of the capital of French bank Societe General, which was privatized in 1987. A message left with a spokesman at the New York-based Soros Fund Management after hours was not immediately returned. The others ordered to stand trial are Charles Naouri, a former Cabinet director in France's finance ministry; Lebanese businessman Samir Traboulsi, who was convicted of insider trading in 1993 in another scandal; and former French banker Jean-Pierre Peyraud, the sources said.
