Paris (AFP)

Ziad Takieddine, one of the main prosecution witnesses against Nicolas Sarkozy in the investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign, withdrew his accusations on Wednesday, raising the joy of the former head of state.

"I say it loud and clear, but this Tournaire judge (editor's note: the former investigating judge in charge of the case) was kind enough to turn it around in his own way and make me say things that are totally contrary to what I said. have said (...): there was no financing of presidential campaign of Sarkozy "declared this sulphurous intermediary.

On the run in Beirut when he was convicted in June in France in the financial aspect of the Karachi affair, Mr. Takieddine adds in a short video extract: "I confirm that this is not true. Mr. Sarkozy does not did not have Libyan funding for the presidential campaign, nor Mr. Gaddafi could do it because he never did. ”

"The truth is out" finally, triumphed in messages on social networks Nicolas Sarkozy, indicted in this case since March 2018 for "concealment of embezzlement of public funds", "passive corruption" and "illegal financing of electoral campaign" , and since mid-October for "criminal association".

"The main accuser admits his lies. He never gave me any money, never was there illegal funding for my 2007 campaign," he adds.

"I ask my lawyer Thierry Herzog to file a request for dismissal in examination and to initiate proceedings for slanderous denunciation against Ziad Takieddine whose previous allegations have caused me considerable damage," he continues.

Mr. Takieddine, aged 70, is himself indicted in this case for complicity in corruption, influence peddling, complicity in embezzlement of public funds.

In November 2016, Mr. Takieddine said he had given between late 2006 and early 2007 five million euros to Mr. Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, and his chief of staff Claude Guéant.

On several occasions, then, before the examining magistrate Serge Tournaire, Mr. Takieddine confirmed having transported this Libyan money intended to finance the presidential campaign of Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy.

In January 2020, in front of Mr. Tournaire's successors, Aude Buresi and Marc Sommerer, Mr. Takieddine did not go back on these statements.

Asked by AFP, his lawyer Me Elise Arfi, who accompanied him during these interrogations, did not wish to react.

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

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

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

© 2020 AFP