Former Interior Minister Claude Guéant sentenced Thursday the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine for defamation. The latter had claimed in the Mediapart media to have given five million euros of Libyan money for the financing of the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.
Allegations denounced by Ziad Takieddine and Nicolas Sarkozy
The Paris Criminal Court sentenced Ziad Takieddine to a fine of 8,000 euros for his remarks made in a video interview published on November 15, 2016 in Mediapart . Mediapart boss Edwy Plenel and the three journalists who wrote the article were however released.
In the video accompanied by an article which had been published in the middle of the campaign for the primary of the right, the sulphurous businessman, presented as an intermediary in Franco-Libyan relations, said he had conveyed between November 2006 and early 2007 " a total of five million euros "in suitcases during three trips between Tripoli and Paris. He claimed to have given these funds twice to Claude Guéant, director of cabinet of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, but also to Nicolas Sarkozy himself.
The latter had fiercely denied these allegations and announced prosecutions, but Nicolas Sarkozy withdrew in July from a procedure similar to that of Claude Guéant.
"It is an incomprehensible judgment"
In two separate judgments relating to the same interview, the court found that Ziad Takieddine had not provided "a sufficient factual basis" to substantiate his words and "benefit from good faith". He was therefore ordered to pay a fine of 8,000 euros, but also to pay 6,000 euros in damages to Claude Guéant and 6,000 euros for legal costs.
"It is an incomprehensible and inadmissible judgment since the words which earned Ziad Takieddine an indictment are now considered defamatory", reacted his lawyer, Me Elise Arfi, who announced his intention to appeal against this judgment . Requested, Ziad Takieddine could not be reached.
Mediapart boss Edwy Plenel relaxed
Edwy Plenel and the three journalists who co-signed the article, Fabrice Arfi, Nicolas Vescovacci and Karl Laske, were released on the grounds of "good faith" because in the context of an interview, "their role was limited precisely to asking questions "to Ziad Takieddine.
In this case, Nicolas Sarkozy is indicted since March 2018 for "concealment of embezzlement of Libyan public funds", "illegal financing of electoral campaign" and "passive corruption". Claude Guéant has been under investigation since 2015 for "forgery and use of forgeries" and "laundering of tax evasion by organized gangs". It was then in 2018 for six additional counts, including "concealment of embezzlement of public funds", "passive corruption" or "complicity in illegal financing of political life".
Ziad Takieddine is finally indicted for "complicity in corruption", "complicity in misappropriation of public funds by a public official", and "complicity in active and passive trading in influence committed by persons exercising a public office".