PARIS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Paris prosecutors said Wednesday they have called for a seven-year probe into alleged kickbacks paid for the multi-billion-dollar sale of French warships to Taiwan in 1991 to be dismissed without trial.

The office of state prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin confirmed a report in Le Figaro newspaper saying he had requested the case, France's biggest corruption probe in 50 years, to be dismissed for lack of evidence.

French judges wrapped up a five-year investigation in 2005 into alleged kickbacks paid on the sidelines of the deal, but were repeatedly denied access by the government to top-secret defence files at the heart of the case.

Writing to financial judges Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Xaviere Simeoni on July 24, the prosecutor said their invesigation had not 'brought to light the existence of retro-commissions' paid on the sidelines of the 1991 frigate sale, according to Le Figaro.

The inquiry centres on accusations that a substantial chunk of 2.8 billion dollars paid by Taiwan for six French-made frigates went on commissions to middlemen, politicians and military officers in Taiwan, China and France.

Taiwan's highest anti-corruption body has said as much as 400 million dollars might have been paid in bribes for the warships built by French defence company Thomson-CSF (now called Thales).

Allegations of backhanders emerged after the body of the officer who ran the Taiwanese navy's weapons acquisitions office was found floating in the sea off the island's east coast in 1993.

Further suspicions arose when Swiss courts discovered 520 million dollars in accounts held by the businessman Andrew Wang, the main suspect in the case, who was allegedly tasked with convincing Taiwan to buy the ships.

Taiwan is seeking damages of close to one billion euros from France before an international court of arbitration.

It has also sought the return of the 520 million dollars held on Wang's Swiss accounts, but Switzerland in April rejected the request.

A total of 900 million dollars remain frozen by Swiss banks on suspicion they were bribes.

In Taiwan, eight people including Wang have been charged in relation to the scandal. Thirteen officers and 15 arms dealers have already been imprisoned.

The Taiwan frigates affair was also at the origin of a political dirty tricks scandal, known as the Clearstream affair, in which top figures including French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- then interior minister -- were wrongly accused of receiving kickbacks from the sale.