Did Nicolas Sarkozy receive money from former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance the campaign that brought him to the Élysée? The question is at the heart of the trial which opens this Monday, January 6 at the Paris criminal court, where the former French president and eleven other defendants, including three former ministers, will appear.
The Paris criminal court will delve into an old and sprawling case starting this Monday. The first accusations came from Libyain 2011, shortly before the fall of Muammar Gaddaficornered by the popular revolt supported by Western intervention, particularly the France and the president Nicolas Sarkozy. In March, it was first a Libyan press agency which announced that the Libyan regime would soon reveal a “ secret likely to endanger the political career of the French head of state “. In the process, Gaddafi’s son, Saïf al-Islam, claimed in an interview that Nicolas Sarkozy “ return the money to the Libyan people “. Then, Mouammar Kadhadi himself asserts in an interview with Figarolater revealed, that “ it was thanks to us that he got to the presidency, it was we who provided him with the funds “.
To these declarations is added a document published on the information site Mediapartpresented as a “note” written in Arabic and dating from December 10, 2006, in which Moussa Koussa, former head of Libya’s foreign intelligence services, reported a “ agreement in principle ” For “ support the candidate’s electoral campaign » Sarkozy “ for an amount worth 50 million euros “. The President of the Republic, then a candidate for re-election in the 2012 presidential election, denounced the next day a “ infamy » and later filed a complaint against Mediapart, whom he accused of having produced a forgery.
At the end of a long investigation and several court decisions, the Court of Cassation will definitively validate the dismissal ordered in favor of Mediapart and, without saying that it is a real document, will dismiss the accusation of “forgery” hammered out by Nicolas Sarkozy. However, in their order for referral to trial, the investigating judges explain that “ the disputes relating to the authenticity of this note” led them “not to consider it as a central element of the file “, even if Moussa Koussa has ” confirmed » the content of the document.
The third element at the origin of the investigation consists of a declaration from the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takkiedine before the investigating judge in the context of the Karachi affair, in which he discusses the financing of the 2007 presidential campaign to the tune of 50 million euros by the Libyan regime. Consequence: in 2013, a judicial investigation and then a preliminary investigation were opened against
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“ Corruption pact »
At the end of ten years of investigation, the investigating magistrates decided, in August 2023, that the charges were sufficient to bring 13 men, including Nicolas Sarkozy and former ministers, to justice. Claude GueantBrice Hortefeux and Eric Woerth ; only 12 defendants will nevertheless be tried, one of them, the Malaysian lawyer and art lover Sivajothi Rajendram, having died in 2021.
According to the magistrates, the affair actually began almost 20 years ago: at the end of 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin but did not hide his ambitions for the 2007 presidential election, met in Tripoli Muammar Gaddafi. Officially, the two men meet to talk about immigration. It is then that a “ corruption pact » would have been concluded between them. Nicolas Sarkozy would have obtained a financial contribution for his presidential campaign according to the accusation, which is based on the declarations of seven former Libyan dignitaries, on the discreet trips, before and after, of Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, but also on the notebooks of the former Libyan Minister of Oil, Choukri Ghanem, found drowned in the Danube in 2012.
In exchange for what supposed compensation for Muammar Gaddafi? First, an international rehabilitation: newly elected President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy will welcome the dictator with great fanfare, during a controversial visit to Paris, the first in three decades. The accusation also mentions the signing of large contracts, as well as a judicial helping hand to Abdallah Senoussi, the head of Libyan intelligence, sentenced to life in France for his role in the1989 UTA DC-10 bombing which cost the lives of 170 people, including 54 French people.
A president, three ministers, two men in the shadows
In this long-term trial, scheduled to last until April 10, Nicolas Sarkozy is being prosecuted for corruption, concealment of embezzlement of public funds, illegal campaign financing and criminal association. He faces ten years in prison, a fine of 375,000 euros, as well as deprivation of civil rights, and therefore ineligibility, of up to five years. For the first time, the former head of state will appear with a record, three weeks after being definitively convicted of corruption in the wiretapping affair to one year in prison under an electronic bracelet: he must soon be summoned before a judge to determine the terms.
Among the eleven other defendants prosecuted alongside him, in addition to the former ministers Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux and Éric Woerth, are two men in the shadows, experienced in parallel international negotiations: the discreet Alexandre Djouhri and the sulphurous and versatile Ziad Takieddine, today now on the run in Lebanon. In the latter’s account, three transfers from the Libyan authorities were found for a total of 6 million euros; he also described “ suitcases » given to Claude Guéant, containing “ large denominations “. Investigations also showed that cash of unknown origin had circulated at Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign headquarters. Éric Woerth, treasurer at the time, retorted that it was “ anonymous donations ”, for only a few thousand euros.
Alexandre Djouhri will have to explain, among other things, the incredible exfiltration from France of Béchir Saleh, Gaddafi’s former chief of staff, between the two rounds of the 2012 presidential election. Claude Guéant will demonstrate that after more than ten years of investigation, none of the offenses with which he is accused have been established », Declared to AFP his counsel Me Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, denouncing “ a sum of assertions, hypotheses and other approximations “.
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A ” machination » ?
Nicolas Sarkozy, who has always denounced a “ fable ”, or even a “ machination » intended to harm him, contests en bloc. For him, the accusations made by the Libyans are only “ revenge » explained by his active support for the rebels at the time of the Arab Spring which brought down Gaddafi, killed in October 2011. « President Nicolas Sarkozy is waiting with determination for these four months of hearings. He will fight the artificial construction imagined by the prosecution. There is no Libyan financing of the campaign » support at the microphone of RFI one of its lawyers, Christophe Ingrain, who also rejects all potential counterparties.
“ After ten years of investigation, with an unprecedented profusion of resources, eavesdropping, trips of magistrates abroad, there is in the file – obviously – no trace of financing, no transfer, no payment, and even no amount of alleged financing! Sometimes it’s three million, sometimes it’s 400 million euros, it makes no sense and is not serious. We want to believe that the court will have the courage to carry out an objective examination of the facts, without being guided by the vague theory which has poisoned the investigation. », he adds.
For their part, the magistrates who referred the ex-president and his co-defendants to court indicate that if “ in economic and financial files, there is no evidence “, ” it appears that a corruption pact was established between Nicolas Sarkozy and Muammar Gaddafi for the purpose of financing the election of the first “, and that the thesis of a ” plot intended to harm Nicolas Sarkozy to punish him for having led the coalition against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi » in 2011 « does not stand up to analysis “.
But in defense of Nicolas Sarkozy, the “ emptiness » of the file also explodes with regard to the “ versability » of the main accuser since 2012 in this affair, Ziad Takkieddine, whose “ sixteen versions » different. One of these versions, a temporary withdrawal in 2020, is the subject of another investigation: a dozen people are implicated for having wanted to exonerate Nicolas Sarkozy by fraudulent means. The ex-president is indicted, suspected of having approved these maneuvers.
A high-stakes trial
For his part, Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the Sherpa association, civil party, tells RFI that he hopes that despite the age and complexity of the case, the public interest will match the challenges of this trial: “ This file could appear, in certain respects, perfectly romantic if it were not established by years of solid investigations. »
But it is for him ” essential » that it mobilizes the attention of French citizens and beyond, “ because you have the meeting of a certain number of elements: both acts of violation of probity, which therefore concern us collectively, concern the general interest, and also this dimension inherent to the fact that we speak presidential campaign financing – therefore for the most important election in the country – through a foreign power “.
“ What were the expected rewards for this possible financing? asks Me Brengarth. How far could his counterparts go? And to what extent, ultimately, have we not mortgaged our own sovereignty just to enable this financing? » So many questions to which the council of the Sherpa association hopes to obtain answers during these four months of hearing.
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(And with AFP)