Libyan funding: the appeals of the Sarkozy camp rejected, the investigation can continue - France 24

Paris (AFP)

The hopes of Nicolas Sarkozy's camp of seeing the investigation collapse into suspicion of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign were showered by the Paris court of appeal, which on Thursday rejected most of the procedural appeals that the ex-president and his relatives had deposited.

Seized by the former Head of State and his former ministers Claude Guéant, Eric Woerth and Brice Hortefeux, as well as the businessman Alexandre Djouhri, who raised a whole series of nullities, the chamber of instruction has validated the investigations launched eight years ago in this case with multiple ramifications.

According to several lawyers, the court only partially annulled one of the grounds for indicting Nicolas Sarkozy for violation of the electoral code.

Even if the defense can still appeal in cassation, this decision allows for the time being the continuation of the investigation by Aude Buresi and Marc Sommerer, the anti-corruption investigating judges of the Paris court who succeeded Serge Tournaire in the conduct of this file, still far from the debate on the possibility of a trial.

"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 it does not There is no longer any code of criminal procedure in France, "responded Me Francis Szpiner, one of the lawyers of businessman Alexandre Djouhri, indicted since January.

- "Judicial fiasco" -

"To see that all the means are rejected is still very worrying, which means that the lawyers are always wrong and the general prosecutor always right", added Me Jean-Marc Delas, another of his lawyers, evoking a " judicial fiasco built on sand ".

Mr Sarkozy's lawyer, Me Thierry Herzog, for his part refused to comment after the hearing.

"I think that the judges were able to resist all kinds of pressure," said Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the NGO Sherpa, whose constitution as a civil party, contested by the Sarkozy camp, was approved.

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.

- No physical evidence -

In November 2016, businessman Ziad Takieddine, indicted in this case and now on the run since his conviction in June in the financial aspect of the Karachi affair, claimed to have handed over five million between late 2006 and early 2007. euros to Mr. Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, and to his chief of staff Claude Guéant.

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

Before the chamber of instruction, Nicolas Sarkozy, prosecuted for "passive corruption, illegal financing of the electoral campaign and concealment of embezzlement of Libyan public funds", had invoked presidential immunity.

For the facts prior to his election, while he was Minister of the Interior, the former Head of State requested that the case be entrusted to the Court of Justice of the Republic, which alone has the power to judge the members. government for the exercise of their functions.

Eric Woerth, the former treasurer, for his part disputed the grounds for his indictment for "complicity in illegal campaign financing".

Cash, at least 30,000 euros, had circulated at the campaign headquarters, and investigators suspect these undeclared sums to be a residue of possible Libyan funding.

MM.

Sarkozy and Guéant argued that the law does not provide for prosecution for the misappropriation of public funds from a foreign country.

In this investigation, Mr. Guéant is suspected of having received 500,000 euros in 2008 in compensation for his intervention with EADS (now Airbus) in favor of the intermediary Alexandre Djouhri, who demanded the payment of a commission for a sale planes to Libya.

Claude Guéant has always maintained that this sum was the result of the sale of two paintings.

Mr. Djouhri, handed over by the British authorities to France at the end of January, had also filed several appeals.

The name of this relative of Mr. Guéant also appears in the investigation into the sale in 2009 of a villa in Mougins, on the Côte d'Azur, to a Libyan fund managed by Bachir Saleh, a former dignitary of the Gaddafi regime.

He is suspected of having been, behind several figureheads, the real owner and of having sold it at an overvalued price, making it possible to conceal any hidden payments, which he disputes.

© 2020 AFP