The trial of former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy and eleven other defendants for suspicion of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign opened on Monday January 6 at the Paris court and did not leave the foreign press indifferent. “Nicolas Sarkozy is on trial for having received millions of euros in illegal electoral campaign financing from the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in the largest political financing scandal in modern French history,” announces straight away the British daily The Guardian.
Same observation from the German weekly Die Zeit : “This is perhaps the biggest corruption scandal in French history involving a former president.” Of all the legal cases against Nicolas Sarkozy, the one concerning Libya is probably the largest, most complex and most explosive, complete The New York Times. The former head of state, aged 69, is being tried for corruption, criminal conspiracy and illegal campaign financing. Many journalists from the foreign press recall the numerous cases and convictions of the former president. “This is not his first summons to court. He could also go there with his electronic bracelet. But it is undoubtedly the most embarrassing for the former President of the Republic”, commented the correspondent to Paris from the Belgian newspaper The eveningbefore the opening of the trial. Nicolas Sarkozy faces his third trial after leaving power, notes the Spanish daily El Mundo.
“Unraveling Sarkozy’s complex relationship with Gaddafi”
Last month, Nicolas Sarkozy exhausted his final appeal in a separate corruption and influence-peddling case, making him the first former French president sentenced to effective detention, although he will serve his sentence under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, recalls the American daily The New York Timesreferring to the Bismuth file.
This new trial, which will last three months, until April 10, should help “unravel Sarkozy’s complex relationship with Gaddafi, the autocratic Libyan leader whose brutal 41-year reign was marked by human rights violations.” man and who has been isolated on the international scene due to his regime’s links to terrorism”, underlines The Guardian. “The ghost of Muammar Gaddafi will hover over a Paris court”, announced The Timesstill in the United Kingdom, ahead of the hearing.
The affair began in 2005, when Nicolas Sarkozy, then French Minister of the Interior, spent a few hours with the Libyan leader in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli, recalls Die Zeit. Muammar Gaddafi’s translator, who was present, told the French court that millions in aid for Sarkozy’s campaign had been agreed at that time, the German newspaper continues. “No one will understand this story,” he said one day in a reassuring tone. Indeed, note Die Zeitthe links and the number of people involved are simply unmanageable, emphasizing that investigators cooperated with 17 countries. A documentary on the case, entitled Nobody Understands Nothingis due out in French cinemas on Wednesday to tell the story of the investigation. If found guilty of corruption, Nicolas Sarkozy risks up to 10 years in prison, as do Claude Guéant, former secretary general of the Élysée and Minister of the Interior, and Brice Hortefeux, close ally of Sarkozy who also been Minister of the Interior.