A few days before the judgment of the Fillon spouses in the so-called “Penelopegate” case, this new declaration risks stirring up suspicion. The former head of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office Eliane Houlette "regretted" this Friday that his remarks made on June 10 during a hearing at the National Assembly on "pressures" from his hierarchy in the investigation of the Fillon case , and which aroused excitement, were "distorted or misunderstood".
Eliane Houlette "wants it to be understood that Mr. Fillon was not charged at the request or under pressure from the executive," according to a statement to AFP sent by his lawyer Me Jean- Pierre Versini-Campinchi.
A statement that went unnoticed at first
During this hearing before the deputies, Eliane Houlette was moved by the “very close control” that the Public Prosecutor's Office, its direct supervisory authority, would have exercised in the conduct of the investigations. "The most difficult (...) was to deal with the pressure of journalists at the same time - but that ... (we can), we can get away from it (...) - and above all the pressure from the public prosecutor's office," said the former prosecutor, retired in June 2019.
Directly questioned, the Attorney General of Paris Catherine Champrenault said, in a message sent to AFP, "regret that what is the regular functioning of the prosecution is assimilated to pressure".
Statements that went unnoticed at first
Already in office at the time of the Fillon affair, she "recalls that her action was always part of the exercise of her legal prerogatives to ensure the application of the law and the proper functioning of the prosecution under her authority" .
Going unnoticed, Eliane Houlette's declarations resurfaced thanks to an article in Le Point and provoked the indignation of very distant political families. The Les Républicains party, which has often denounced an "instrumentalization" of justice in the Fillon affair, has raised "extremely serious" accusations.
Society
Fillon case: Strong reactions after the statements of an ex-prosecutor on hierarchical "pressures"
Justice
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