Paris (AFP)

The indictments of Nicolas Sarkozy in the investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of the campaign in 2007 are not based only on the statements of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine, who returned Wednesday on his accusations against the former president the national financial prosecutor said Thursday.

"The indictments in this case are based, in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on serious or concordant indications which are not limited to the statements of a single person", writes the prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert in a statement.

In an interview with Paris Match and broadcast on Wednesday evening by BFMTV, the Franco-Lebanese businessman, on the run in Beirut, did an about-face by asserting that "Mr. Sarkozy did not have Libyan funding for the presidential campaign, nor Mr. Gaddafi could do it because he never did ”.

This intermediary, at the heart of relations between France and the former regime of Muammar Gaddafi, thus returned to his accusations repeated for eight years against the Sarkozy clan, prompting triumphant statements from the former president and right-wing leaders .

"The statements of Mr. Ziad Takieddine (...) call for the following clarifications and rectifications", reacted the financial prosecutor by listing eight remarks.

The PNF first of all recalls that Mr. Takieddine spoke about this funding from 2012 to the judge in charge of the financial aspect of the Karachi affair and to journalists "going so far as to incriminate himself".

Then defending the conditions under which his successive statements were received by the judges, "in the presence of his lawyer", the PNF stressed that "Mr. Takieddine had all the time necessary to reread his minutes of hearings before sign them ".

"He never made the slightest observation on the conduct of his interrogations," the statement continued.

In his statement, Mr. Takieddine called into question Judge Serge Tournaire, initially in charge of the investigation until the summer of 2019. "I say it loud and clear, this Judge Tournaire was kind enough to turn it in his own way and make me say things that are totally contrary to what I said, "he said.

For the financial prosecutor, "the accusations against Mr. Serge Tournaire (...) are devoid of any foundation".

"Questioned six times by various investigating judges including after the departure of Mr. Serge Tournaire, Mr. Ziad Takieddine never went back on his first statements", underlines Mr. Bohnert.

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