Nicolas Sarkozy soon again on the bench of the defendants? This is what the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) is asking for, which on Thursday May 11 requested a criminal trial for the former French president and 12 other people. It is this time about the case relating to suspicions of Libyan financing of its presidential campaign of 2007.
The PNF asks that Nicolas Sarkozy be judged for passive corruption, association of criminals, illegal financing of electoral campaign and concealment of embezzlement of Libyan public funds. Charges disputed by the former President of the Republic.
The offense of association of criminals, specifies a source familiar with the file with the AFP, suggests that Nicolas Sarkozy knowingly left his close collaborators, his political supports and intermediaries ” act in order to obtain or attempt to obtain “with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi” financial support for the financing of his 2007 election campaign “. We are talking about several million euros.
It is the two investigating judges in charge of the case who will now have to order whether or not to hold the trial and, if necessary, what charges to hold. Among the 12 other people targeted by the indictment are three former ministers of the former president: Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux and Éric Woerth. The latter was the treasurer of the 2007 presidential campaign. Franco-Lebanese businessmen Ziad Takieddine and Franco-Algerian Alexandre Djouhri, suspected of having served as intermediaries, are also part of the defendants.
It was in 2013 that the PNF opened the investigation, after accusations from Libyan officials, Ziad Takieddine and the publication by the Mediapart site of a document supposed to prove that the campaign had benefited from Libyan funds.
Nicolas Sarkozy will know next week the decision of the Court of Appeal in the so-called “wiretapping” file which earned him a sentencing at first instance to three years in prison, one of which is firmfor corruption and influence peddling.
Read also : Sarkozy and Libya: a tumultuous history strewn with gray areas