Libyan funding: Ziad Takieddine withdraws his accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine.
Bertrand GUAY / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
In France, less than a month after the indictment of former President Nicolas Sarkozy for criminal conspiracy, one of the main witnesses for the prosecution in this case of suspicion of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign, does an about-face .
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine reconsidered his accusations.
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In front of the cameras of the private channel BFM TV and of the magazine
Paris Match
, Ziad Takieddine, 70, clears the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but also the Libyan Mouammar Gadhafi.
On the other hand, he accuses the investigating judge in charge of the case until August 2019 of having transformed his statements.
"
This Judge Tournaire was kind enough to turn things in his own way and make me say things that are totally contrary to the comments I have always made: there was no funding for the presidential campaign from Mr. Sarkozy, never!
", Declared
Ziad Takieddine in particular.
The footage was shot in Beirut, Lebanon, where he has been on the run since his conviction in another case.
For Sarkozy, "
the truth is finally breaking out
"
In that of possible Libyan funding, Ziad Takieddine had claimed four years ago to have served as an intermediary between the two leaders of the time, and handed over five million euros to Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, and his chief of staff.
A sum intended to finance his 2007 presidential campaign.
On his Facebook account, the former French president said he was stunned by this turnaround, but for him, "
the truth is finally emerging
".
The former president has been indicted in this case since March 2018 for "concealment of embezzlement of public funds", "passive corruption" and "illegal financing of the electoral campaign", and since mid-October
for "criminal association"
.
Nicolas Sarkozy specifies having asked his lawyer to initiate proceedings for slanderous denunciation and a procedure for his dismissal in examination.
An investigation opened in 2012
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 Ziad Takieddine ... In seven years of work, the magistrates have gathered a sum of disturbing clues which have given 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.
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France
Nicolas sarkozy
Libya
Justice