Ex-SocGen trader Kerviel changes legal team

By Sudip Kar-Gupta

PARIS (Reuters) - Jerome Kerviel, the banker blamed for the world's worst rogue trading scandal, has changed his legal team to focus on a more "aggressive" defence strategy, a spokeswoman for Kerviel said on Saturday.

"The new team's strategy is to go more on the offensive," Patricia Chapelotte, who is Kerviel's new public relations adviser, told Reuters.

The ex-trader at Societe Generale (SOGN.PA), France's second-biggest listed bank, has replaced his former lawyer Elisabeth Meyer and has a new team of six lawyers, led by Bernard Benaiem.

The other members of the team are Caroline Wassermann, Guillaume Selnet, Eric Dupond-Moretti, Francis Tissot and Eric Hemmerdinger.

Dupond-Moretti is one of France's best-known criminal lawyers.

High profile cases on which Dupond-Moretti has worked include the 2004 Outreau paedophile trial, murder investigations and a probe into the use of banned substances on the Tour de France cycling race.

Meyer, who successfully obtained Kerviel's release from prison earlier this year, said she was "disappointed" to no longer be on the case.

Kerviel was freed from prison in March after an appeal against his detention but he remains under formal investigation for breach of trust, computer abuse and falsification.