Paris (AFP)

The Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday rejected most of the appeals filed by the Nicolas Sarkozy camp which challenged the validity of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, we learned from sources close to the case.

Seized by the former head of state and several of his relatives implicated in the investigation, the investigating chamber thus validated the investigations launched eight years ago in this case with multiple ramifications.

The defense can still appeal in cassation.

The court only partially annulled one of the grounds for indicting Nicolas Sarkozy for violation of the electoral code.

"We can clearly see that judicial corporatism exists because in a case neither done nor to be done which is a scandal (...) the investigating chamber has just covered the nullities of procedures which show that there is no more code of criminal procedure in France ", reacted Me Francis Szpiner, one of the lawyers of the businessman Alexandre Djouhri, indicted since January in this investigation.

"To see that all means are rejected is still very worrying, which means that the lawyers are always wrong and the general prosecutor's office always right", added Me Jean-Marc Delas, another of his lawyers.

"It is astounding in a case of this nature which from the start has been a legal fiasco built on sand, the fantasy is still present today", he added.

Me Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the NGO Sherpa, whose civil party constitution was contested by the Sarkozy camp, for his part expressed "his satisfaction".

"I think the judges were able to withstand pressures of all kinds," he told AFP.

The investigation was opened after the publication by Mediapart in 2012, between the two presidential rounds, of a document supposed to prove that the victorious campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy had been financed by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

Testimonies from Libyan dignitaries, notes from the Tripoli secret services, accusations of an intermediary ... In seven years of work, the magistrates have gathered a sum of disturbing clues which gave substance to this thesis.

However, no material evidence has been found, even though suspicious movements of funds have led to nine indictments to date.

In a vast procedural offensive, the former head of state and his former ministers Claude Guéant, Eric Woerth and Brice Hortefeux - all indicted except the latter - had raised a whole series of nullities against these investigations.

© 2020 AFP