• Bygmallion case, Sarkozy to be tried for illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign

  • Influences: the Macron-Sarkozy tandem: friendship or political calculation?

Nicolas Sarkozy, finally free from accusations of Justice?

Not at all.

But closer to the end of the tunnel after the main prosecution witness who accused him of having received

five million euros to finance the campaign that led him to the Elysee in 2007 back down

.

The ex-president requests the file of the accusations against him.

Hope is reborn in the French right, which, according to all the polls, has no one capable of interposing in the duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

Sarkozy is, hands down, the most popular leader on the right.

With 49% of good opinions he equals with President Emmanuel Macron in the latest 'Paris Match' poll.

His tours of France promoting his presidential memoirs raised (before the closure of the bookstores due to the reconfiguration due to Covid) immense queues of fervent readers in search of a signature: the right, without new relevant leaders, without a program and caught in pincer between Macron and

Le Pen

, sighs for his return.

Several leaders of the Republicans puffed out their chests yesterday reiterating their faith in Sarkozy's innocence.

That return is not something done, although from this week it is a little easier. The protagonist of the twist of this convoluted 'affair' is called

Zaid Takieddine

He is 70 years old and made his fortune as an arms dealer.

He has spoken from Beirut in a video broadcast on BFMTV and 'Paris Match'.

What are you doing in Lebanon?

Fleeing the French Justice that sentenced him to five years in prison in June in the Karachi case, a dark case of retrocommissions in arms contracts with which Edouard Balladur's 1995 campaign was financed ... still pending the trial of the When the investigating judge in that case, Renaud van Ruymbeke, questioned him in 2012, Takieddine suggested that he "provide the existing elements on the financing of Sarkozy's 2007 campaign above 50 million euros". he maintained the suspense with the police and with three successive judges.

He confirmed his accusing words but never provided the evidence.

The details were given in an interview with the Mediapart website, which he later ratified before the magistrates.

In that medium, he stated that he himself transported five million euros in three trips between the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007.

200 and 500 euro bills in leather suitcases

.

Delivered to Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, and his henchman Claude Guéant.

He specified that

the money came from Abadallah Senoussi, former head of espionage for Gaddafi's Libya

In a letter dated March 31, 2019, he praised Judge Serge Tournaite for his "determination to conclude the investigation and end that plague that is corruption."

He promised "new items" ... and called for the lien on two of his properties, his boat and his bank account to be lifted.

Goods estimated at 42 million euros! His letter ended like this: "If not, I release myself from all participation or collaboration."

Now, convicted and in Lebanon, he has declared: "I confirm that it was not true. Sarkozy did not receive Libyan financing for the presidential campaign, nor could Gaddafi do it because he never did." To give credibility to his change of sides

now accuse Judge Tournaire

: "He gave the fly to my words to make me say things completely opposite to what I had said."

"Crazy" and "liar"

Sarkozy has also changed his perception of the controversial accuser.

The last time he testified before the judge, who also charged him with

criminal association

, called him "crazy" and "liar".

Now, in a statement he says: "The truth finally explodes." "The main accuser acknowledges his lies. He never gave me money, there was never illegal financing of my 2007 campaign."

The former head of state announced on Facebook that he has asked his lawyer to file a lawsuit to lift these accusations and another proceeding against the arms dealer for slanderous charges, since his previous allegations have caused him "considerable damage."

Sarkozy has two other pending cases with the Justice

.

Between the end of November and the beginning of December, he will be tried for corruption and influence peddling for allegedly having tried to obtain, in exchange for a favor, confidential reports from a magistrate in the so-called "wiretapping case." In addition, between March and April of next year he will sit again on the bench also for an alleged illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign, in which he was defeated by the socialist

François Hollande

.

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