Libyan funding: "Mimi Marchand", the boss of a paparazzi agency, indicted

Michèle Marchand, boss of the Best Image paparazzi agency in November 2017 at the Elysée Palace.

AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

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The boss of the Best Image paparazzi agency, Michèle Marchand, known as “Mimi Marchand”, is suspected of “witness tampering” in the case of the alleged Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007. Michèle Marchand was referred this Saturday, June 5 after two days in police custody, we learned from sources close to the case. 

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Michèle Marchand, boss of the paparazzi agency Best Images, was indicted on Saturday, June 5, for "witness tampering" and "criminal association with a view to committing an organized gang scam" in the case of Libyan funding suspected of the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, announced his lawyer Caroline Toby to AFP.

She was placed under judicial supervision.

This figure of the press people had been taken into custody Thursday in a judicial investigation after an interview granted in Lebanon by the businessman Ziad Takieddine to a journalist from

Paris Match

accompanied by a photographer from Best Image last November . 

Turnaround

Ziad Takieddine who, at first, accused the former French president of having received money from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for his presidential campaign, in this interview

 withdrew his statements

against

Nicolas Sarkozy.

But two months later, questioned by the examining magistrates, Ziad Takieddine claimed that his words had been distorted by

Paris Match

. 

According to a source familiar with the matter, four other people are now in police custody, including the former director of the Publicis agency, Arnaud de la Villesbrune, the businessman Pierre Reynaud and Noël Dubus, a crook having been in prison several times.

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  • Libya

  • Justice

  • France

  • Muammar Gaddafi

  • Nicolas sarkozy

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