170 dead, including 54 French. The explosion of McDonnell Douglas DC-10 connecting Brazzaville to Paris on September 19, 1989, was in the heart of the so-called Libyan trial of Nicolas Sarkozy, Friday, January 24. “Imagine yourself in front of an almost empty coffin, and we tell you, ‘It’s dad, darling’. Mr. Sarkozy, that day, I was the age that your daughter today,” said Christophe Raveneau, son of Maryvonne, one of the victims. In response, the former President of the Republic wanted to proclaim his innocence with all the witnesses: “Four words come to mind, he said. Dignity, in testimonies, and this was not easy.
Since 2012, judges have been wondering what Libya did in favor of the rehabilitation of Abdallah Senoussi, former director of Libyan military intelligence and brother-in-law of Colonel Gaddafi, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for having ordered This “DC-10” attack. The judicial fate of the Libyan official could have constituted a major counterpart in exchange for the financing of the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. The assassin that had to be saved (Robert Laffont), The Survey Book of Karl Laske, journalist in Mediapart, and Vincent Nouzilles, ex-grand reporter to L’Express, explores this track. The assassin is Senoussi, unpublished documents obtained by the authors with a Libyan intermediary attest to its key role in the explosion of the DC-10, a attack on France. The rescue would be the start of the procedures carried out by two lawyers close to Sarkozie, Francis Szpiner and Thierry Herzog, in favor of a reopening of the file. Senoussi also met Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux; His services discreetly paid six million euros to Ziad Takkieddine, a prized intermediary of the French right. In exchange for what? The two journalists unveil the ramifications of a state case, where it is about French secret services, bargaining and large tickets.
L’Express: Let us learn the documents you reveal in The assassin that had to be saved ?
Vincent Nouzille: We discover how Libya prepared two attacks by the explosion of planes: the first, a Boeing by Pan Am, above Lockerbie, in Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people; The other being the DC-10 of UTA, on September 19, 1989 above Niger, killing 170 people. Libya has never officially admitted having commanded and committed these attacks. In 2003 and 2004, she signed international agreements with the payment of damages to victims, with the United States and with France, but in these documents, it is always a question of an “explosion” or a ” incident”. The thesis that the culprit is to be sought elsewhere continues to infuse. In Lockerbiea recent documentary broadcast on the British Sky channel, several witnesses, including the father of one of the victims, continue to advance this theory.
The Libyan intelligence documents brought by Samir Shegwara, which we reveal, leave no doubt. We learn that these two attacks were prepared by the same Libyan team, in a pharmacy serving as an external intelligence cover. We discover that for several months, the Libyans seek the right operating mode, test the explosives. At the start, they plan to explode two planes to France at the same time.
Karl Laske: What these documents also show is that Abdallah Senoussi, the brother-in-law of Gaddafi, who was sentenced to Paris in 1999, is present during a demonstration of the explosives that will be used for the attacks, and that he is In copy of several key documents, reporting projects and targets. It should be remembered that Senoussi is currently still detained in Tripoli, and under a French arrest warrant. The other revelation is that the names of two agents involved in the Lockerbie attack – and the man who was condemned – appear in the preparations for the DC10 attack, as well as the name of the Artifying Libyan services, the trial of which is to open next May in Washington. We believe that with the appearance of these names in these archives, there is material to reopen the investigation in Paris on the DC10 attack.
Do we know why Libya then wants to strike France and the United States?
Karl Laske: The terrorist action responds to logics that are not necessarily rational. It is first of all an episode of the secret war waged by Libya against the West. At that time, Gaddafi’s army suffered stinging defeats against Chad, then supported by France. And Libya has just undergone an American bombardment on April 15, 1986, in which Muammar Gaddafi lost an adoptive daughter there. Ten days earlier, the Libyan secret services had exploded a bomb in the La Belle nightclub in Berlin killing three people and many injured.
Vincent Nouzille: Since the early 1970s, Libya has been protecting, weapon and finance from new Propalestinian terrorist groups. The shadow of Libya appears in many attacks and misappropriation of aircraft committed in Europe. This time, as the documents we reveal, Libya organizes two major attacks.
How did you make sure of the authenticity of the archives you had access?
Karl Laske: Samir Shegrawa contacted us in 2018, via an intermediary. We meet him in a foreign country, with Fabrice Arfi. It is a printer, elected local in Libya, who explains that we want to document the crimes of the Muammar Gaddafi regime. He was incarcerated, tortured for a month, at the time of the 2011 uprising. We were able to verify his credibility with several sources, and consult the originals of the documents. In addition, following a first publication of two of these documents by Mediapart, the DGSI came into contact with him, as part of the investigation into the DC-10.
Our hypothesis is that these documents were carried away by Abdallah Senoussi in his flight and that he lost control of it. These archives covered a period from 1987 to 2011. During the investigation, we were able to cross -checked many facts, many trips mentioned in these documents.
When does the DC-10 attack occur, do suspicions immediately be done on Libya?
Vincent Nouzille: No, for months, justice gropes. The first tracks are Iranian, Irano-Syrian, Palestinian. The Quai d’Orsay claims that the Libyan track is unlikely, that the country has given up terrorism.
Karl Laske: For a long time, this Libyan track will have adversaries within the government. There is then a large pro-Libyan lobby which is embodied by Roland Dumas, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. He absolutely wants to return to diplomatic relations, commercial with Libya, despite the first information on Libyan responsibility in the attack. According to the Archives of the Quai d’Orsay that we have consulted, travel projects,, of contracts are on the table. Affairicism ultimately attempts to hinder the necessary judicial consequences.
What is the turn of the judicial inquiry in France?
Karl Laske: The investigation establishes Libyan responsibility by highlighting the sending of a team to Brazzaville, departing from the DC10 from UTA to Paris, the involvement of a Libyan diplomat in this city, and the boarding of a Sympathizer Kadhafiste, who will introduce the suitcase trapped on board. Shortly after, in 1990, the Libyans will give a key index to France. By seeking to incriminate the Libyan opposition, Abdallah Senoussi shows the French a suitcase bomb supposedly seized during the search of an opponent. However, it seems in all respects identical to that which was used for the DC-10 attack. Libyans authorize France to take samples. In Paris, the police laboratory confirms that these are the same suitcases. This element confirms Libyan responsibility instead of dismissing it.
Vincent Nouzille: What strikes is the role of the DST. French counterintelligence is at the heart of the investigation. Jean-François Clair, the deputy director, receives the order of his hierarchy to smell, to sniff the tracks in several countries. Three DST leaders, including him, go to Libya several times to meet officials, including Abdallah Senoussi, the attacking officer. All this is transcribed in the documents that Samir Shegrawa transmitted to us and we were able to cross it with the interested parties.
But all of this is out of procedure. The suitcase will not be reintegrated into the legal proceedings until later. What is strange is that then, the DST goes again to Libya, and this time, according to the Libyan archives, the DST proposes that Abdallah Senoussi be left out of prosecution if two other suspects of the attacks are Transferred to France to be tried.
In the end, no Libyan accused went to the trial of the DC10 affair in 1999. Why?
Vincent Nouzille: In the notes we have consulted, the Libyan secret services assess the risks of going to the trial. And it seems that Abdallah Senoussi did not want to let go of his men in the French affair.
Another phase opens after condemnation to perpetuity, pronounced in absentia in Paris in March 1999, of Abdallah Senoussi: the Libyan campaign for its rehabilitation …
Karl Laske: Within the Libyan power, the rehabilitation of Abdallah Senoussi, which occupies a decisive place with Gaddafi, becomes a priority. Nicolas Sarkozy, himself explained that when he came to Libya on October 6, 2005, Muammar Gaddafi had asked him to do something for Senoussi.
He said he refused any intervention but what the current trial shows [NDLR : des financements libyens]it is that within his team, Claude Guéant, and Brice Hortefeux, two of his closest employees, met secretly Senoussi, before and after the official visit, accompanied by the intermediary Ziad Takieddine who was also close of the responsible for the DC10 attack.
Instructive magistrates saw in these exchanges the elements of a possible “corruption pact”.
Karl Laske: The pompom is the role of Me Thierry Herzog, a lawyer very close to Nicolas Sarkozy, who for his part, in November 2005, will speak with Azza Maghur, the Libyan lawyer of Senoussi, in Tripoli, to scaffold The cancellation of the conviction of Senoussi and the other Libyan agents responsible for the DC10 attack. A few months later, in July 2006, Abdallah SENOURSSI sends a representation mandate to Thierry Herzog to defend him in this case. Recall that in 2006, the same Senoussi coordinates the sending of 6 million euros to Ziad Takieddine, including 2 million from the accounts of his intelligence service.
Thierry Herzog claims that he did not go to this November 2005 meeting. He would also have told Nicolas Sarkozy that he had put the mandate of Abdallah Senoussi “at La Corbeille”.
Karl Laske: Above all, he opposed professional secrecy with regard to his role. But many documents examined by the court prove that exchanges and meetings have continued in the Sarkozyst sphere to find a solution, or in any case make Libyans believe that a revision of the criminal situation of Senoussi was possible. And this until May 2009, when Claude Guéant, by his own admission at the hearing, organizes a meeting intended for the closing of the Senoussi file. Proof that it was well open. Needless to say, these only promises have rightly scandalized families of victims of the DC10 attack, which are also present and, for some, civil parties at the trial.
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