Since May, two judges have been investigating what they describe as a "case of major gravity".
They suspect, among others, the crook Noël Dubus, the paparazzi "popess" Mimi Marchand or the advertiser Arnaud de la Villesbrunne of having paid or promised to remunerate Mr. Takieddine, with the possible endorsement of Nicolas Sarkozy, so that he withdraws his remarks accusing the former head of state of having received money from Muammar Gaddafi to finance his victorious presidential campaign of 2007.
In an interview in November 2020 with Paris Match and BFMTV, the Franco-Lebanese had made a spectacular about-face, immediately acclaimed by Nicolas Sarkozy.
His reversal had been confirmed in an "interpellation summons" sent to justice the following month ... before, another twist, he returned more or less to his initial version in January 2021 before the judges.
On the run in Lebanon after his conviction in the Karachi case in June 2020, Ziad Takieddine, 71, was recently imprisoned and responded on November 11 and 12 in Beirut to the two judges and a Parisian financial prosecutor for the first time.
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine at the Paris courthouse, October 7, 2019 Bertrand GUAY AFP / Archives
Depicted as versatile, accused of "lying nonstop" during the Karachi trial, he explained, in an interrogation of which AFP was aware, that he wanted at the time to give his "truth" but found himself the victim of a "manipulation".
His 30-second statement to BFMTV?
"Fake", "I did not say exactly what was broadcast".
The Paris Match article?
"Confusion", because the journalist "put his point of view".
"Neither promised nor paid"
What is his "truth"?
The first day of his interrogation, the septuagenarian insists that he "always said the same thing (...) Sarkozy did not receive a penny from the Libyans for his 2007 presidential campaign. Neither from me, nor from anyone else."
"Were you promised money in exchange for your statements in favor of Nicolas Sarkozy or against the judges"?
"No, neither promised nor paid nor requested", replies the intermediary.
After some anger, recorded on the report, against the elements opposed to him by the magistrates, and a night's sleep, he promised the next day "the whole truth" and qualified his remarks: "I never said that Mr. Sarkozy did not had never received any money but I said that Mr. Sarkozy had not received any money from me personally".
Mr. Takieddine then charges the ex-president and others.
"The sentences that I was asked to say during the interview were ambiguous sentences suggesting that (Sarkozy) had not touched anything, and which had been the subject of an agreement on the part of (the one- ci) and Thierry Herzog", his lawyer.
Thierry Herzog, lawyer for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at the Paris courthouse, September 30, 2021 Alain JOCARD AFP / Archives
At this point, Messrs.
Sarkozy and Herzog are not implicated in this aspect of the case.
"It was Mimi Marchand", close to the Macron and Sarkozy couples, "who asked me before the interview to say (these sentences)", he continues.
The police investigation revealed transfers of money from certain French protagonists in the case to relatives of Ziad Takieddine in Lebanon which could constitute payment for his retraction.
The intermediary confirms these transfers, but specifies that they were not used to pay for his testimony but rather for placement in Morocco and protection against the pro-Iranian Shiite militia of Hezbollah.
At the risk of contradicting himself, the intermediary acquiesces when the judges evoke the hypothesis that this money could have been used to "bait him" but disputes having touched it or having been aware of it.
"Bait"
He ends up assuring that the payments were "for this famous article in the press", but maintains that he has nothing to do with it.
Just before concluding, he evokes a recent aspect of the investigation: the suspicions of attempted corruption by Lebanese magistrates to free the son of Muammar Gaddafi detained in Lebanon.
The magistrates suspect certain protagonists of having wanted to get Hannibal Gaddafi out of prison so that he could provide possible evidence exonerating Nicolas Sarkozy from the charges of Libyan financing.
Undated photo found on the laptop of Hannibal Gaddafi, one of the sons of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and published on September 27, 2011 by the Libyan transitional government, showing him in an unspecified location - Album of family/AFP/Archives
Ziad Takieddine accuses the former head of state of having "spent 100,000", without specifying the currency, "to bribe Lebanese judges to free the son of Gaddafi".
Mimi Marchand, who disputes any attempt at witness tampering and whose lawyer Caroline Toby did not wish to react, seemed to suggest in a listening that Nicolas Sarkozy was informed of these steps.
Asked by AFP, the entourage of the former head of state indicated that "these statements attributed to Mr. Takieddine are ridiculous, without foundation and are not supported by any concrete element. It is a new version which follows on from so many others.
Ziad Takieddine, indicted for "corruption" in the main investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing, has so far not been worried in this part of his "retraction", in which at least eight people are implicated. exam.
The "popess" of the paparazzi Mimi Marchand in Paris, October 6, 2021 Alain JOCARD AFP / Archives
Most deny having attempted to direct the testimony of the intermediary.
On November 25, a communicant was arrested for "complicity" in witness tampering and for "criminal association", suspected of having worked on the retraction of Mr. Takieddine and of having sent money.
"I never had the feeling of working against French justice", she defended herself before the judges, sorry for having been "idiot and credulous".
© 2022 AFP