Paris (AFP)
"Mimi" Marchand, boss of the BestImage agency, has appealed against her pre-trial detention in a part of the case of suspicion of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential election of Nicolas Sarkozy, announced Monday her lawyer Caroline Toby at the 'AFP.
"I appealed against the order of placement in pre-trial detention and made a summary release," said Mr. Toby.
In this investigation, separate from the main part and which relates to the conditions under which the intermediary Ziad Takieddine withdrew his accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy, Michèle Marchand - whose real name is - was indicted in early June for "witness tampering" and "criminal association with a view to committing an organized gang fraud".
While she was placed under judicial supervision, with a ban on contact with several people, including Nicolas Sarkozy, a judge of freedoms and detention placed her in pre-trial detention on Friday evening for non-compliance with these obligations.
"A listening established that she had not respected her judicial control because she spoke to someone" to whom she was not allowed to speak, a source close to the AFP told AFP on Friday. investigation.
According to Me Toby, "this decision is totally disproportionate, given the involvement (of Mimi Marchand) in this file, her age (74 years, editor's note), her state of health and the fact that this listening occurs with someone 'one with whom she has been speaking for 25 years twice a day ", photographer Sébastien Valiela.
The photographer, a figure in the paparazzi world, is the author of the BestImage photo and video report broadcast in November by Paris Match and BFMTV, in which Mr. Takieddine announced his disputed withdrawal.
Mr. Valiela was heard as a "free suspect" in this investigation on June 15.
Friday, he was indicted for "concealment of violation of professional secrecy" in another judicial information, relating to the dissemination by Paris Match in February 2020 of photos of the arrest of Piotr Pavlenski, the Russian artist at the heart of the Griveaux affair.
Mediapart announced Monday that he had also been indicted for "active corruption" in this case in which three police officers are implicated on their side for "violation of professional secrecy", "passive corruption" or "forgery in public writing ".
The photographer's lawyer, Me Fabien-Jean Garrigues, confirmed to AFP this "indictment for acts of active corruption which are firmly contested".
Mr. Valiela is known to have taken some famous pictures, in addition to those of Ziad Takieddine, recently: Mazarine Pingeot with his father François Mitterrand, published in Paris Match in 1994, or even stolen photos of the romance between François Hollande and Julie Gayet , published in January 2014 in Closer.
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