Nicolas Sarkozy has withdrawn from his action in defamation against the French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who was to be tried in September in Paris for having told Mediapart to have handed over 5 million euros of Libyan money to the camp of the former head of state.
In a letter sent Monday to court and which AFP has knowledge, Thierry Herzog, the lawyer Nicolas Sarkozy, announces that his client "purely and simply withdrew from this body". The lawyer explains this withdrawal by elements "revealed by the press" in the spring, which he considers to excuse for Nicolas Sarkozy in the ongoing investigation into the suspicion of financing by the former regime of Gaddafi's presidential campaign of 2007, because "coming from" cruelly deny the different statements "of Ziad Takieddine.
Nicolas Sarkozy indicted since March 2018
In this case, Nicolas Sarkozy is indicted since March 2018, including "passive bribery" and "concealment of misappropriation of public funds Libyan" facts he contests. The Paris Court of Appeal will consider his appeals on 17 October.
Nicolas Sarkozy "will wait for the outcome of this information (judicial, ed), which will necessarily litter unfounded and false claims that he had wished to pursue (...) which will then allow him to restore his rights, on a another procedural basis, namely that of slanderous denunciation ", continues the lawyer.
Ziad Takieddine remains pursued by Claude Guéant
The trial of Ziad Takieddine, which was scheduled for 26 and 27 September in the Criminal Court, is therefore canceled. He continues, however, continued by the former Secretary General of the Elysee Claude Gueant for the same video published by Mediapart and will appear on December 19.
In this video published on November 15, 2016 on the news site, accompanied by an article, the businessman, presented as an intermediary in the Franco-Libyan relations, confided to have conveyed between November 2006 and early 2007 "a total of five million euros "in suitcases during three trips between Tripoli and Paris.
Funds he would have twice given Claude Gueant, chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, but also to the former head of state himself. They had fiercely denied the allegations and announced prosecution.
Following his statements, Ziad Takieddine was indicted for "complicity in bribery and active and passive trading in influence".