Paris (AFP)
The day after his arrival from London after two years of legal battle, the Franco-Algerian businessman Alexandre Djouhri was imprisoned Friday after his indictment by the anti-corruption judges in charge of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan funding for Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007.
Claimed for years by French justice, he was handed over to the authorities on Thursday evening when he arrived at Roissy airport from London, where he was arrested in January 2018 under European arrest warrants.
The 60-year-old intermediary was indicted on Friday, notably for "forgery and use of forgery" and "active corruption", according to a judicial source.
It was also for "active bribery of a foreign public official", "complicity" and "concealment of embezzlement of public funds by a person charged with a public service mission", as well as for "laundering of active bribery and liability of foreign public officials in organized gangs "and" laundering of tax fraud in organized gangs ".
In accordance with the requisitions of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), he was then placed in pre-trial detention following a decision by a liberty and detention judge.
Alexandre Djouhri, close to former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin then to the ex-minister of Nicolas Sarkozy Claude Guéant, was eagerly awaited by the French magistrates, the investigations having revealed several suspicious financial flows implicating him in the Libyan affair.
His name appeared in particular in the investigation for the sale in 2009 of a villa located in Mougins, on the Côte-d'Azur, to a Libyan fund managed by Bachir Saleh, a former dignitary of the Gaddafi regime.
- "Machination" -
He is suspected of having been, behind several nominees, the true owner and of having sold it at an overvalued price, making it possible to hide possible hidden payments from the regime.
"It is imagination and machination, I have never had a villa as a nominee and I have never sold a villa to Bachir Saleh", he defended himself last March on LCI.
During a search of his home in Geneva in March 2015, the discovery of an RIB in the name of Mr. Guéant also intrigued the magistrates.
They suspect the right arm of Nicolas Sarkozy to have received 500,000 euros to compensate various interventions in favor of Mr. Djouhri, in particular with EADS (now Airbus group) from whom the businessman would have claimed several million d commission for a sale of planes to Libya.
Claude Guéant always maintained that this sum was the fruit of the sale of two paintings of Flemish painting but did not convince the judges who put him under investigation.
Triggered by the publication by Mediapart in 2012 of a document supposed to prove the Libyan financing of the 2007 campaign, the investigation also led to the indictment for "passive corruption" of Nicolas Sarkozy, who challenges the legality of the investigations.
Failing to audition the elusive "Monsieur Alexandre", his nickname in the political world, the magistrates had decided to issue a first arrest warrant in December 2017, supplemented by new charges in February 2018, after his arrest in January at London Airport.
Hospitalized after a series of heart accidents, the businessman was placed under house arrest in the British capital after having paid 1.13 million euros in bail.
After a lengthy procedure, a British court confirmed on January 22 the decision, made in February 2019 by the Westminster court, to hand it over to France.
But Mr. Djouhri, who has repeatedly denounced "political" justice and "persecution", disputes the validity of the arrest warrants. The question must also be debated on March 19 before the Paris Court of Appeal.
His defense claims that Swiss law did not compel this Swiss resident to go to France. And that the informal summons of the investigators, by e-mail and by phone in July 2016, did not respect the procedure.
"They made a search (at his home, note), they found absolutely nothing so they invented a leak to be able to arrest me in London," he said at the end of the court in February 2019.
© 2020 AFP