TORONTO (AP) – Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney denied Tuesday any wrongdoing in his dealings with a German arms dealer who claims the Canadian leader agreed to take money from him while still in office.

Mulroney acknowledges he accepted $225,000 Canadian dollars from Karlheinz Schreiberin exchange for promoting a project involving a light armored vehicle factory on behalf of Germany’s Thyssen AG, but only after leaving politics.

“My business with Mr. Schreiber was legal and involved no wrongdoing of any kind,” the former Conservative leader testified before a public inquiry into the deal.

Schreiber insists the deal was struck while Mulroney was still in office to lobby the Canadian government, an arrangement that may have breached ethics rules.

The scandal has further sullied the reputation of the already unpopular conservative Canadian politician who served as prime minister from 1984 to 1993.

Mulroney kept the money secret, only declaring it on his taxes when news of the payments threatened to leak out after Schreiber’s arrest in 1999.

Schreiber, who holds Canadian and German citizenship, is being sought by German prosecutors on charges he evaded income tax on millions of dollars in commissions from his arms deals.

He was released on bail from a Canadian jail late 2007.

Mulroney has described the agreement as one of the biggest mistakes of his life and says Schreiber’s allegations are an attempt to stave off his extradition.

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