World Cup awarded to Qatar: Nicolas Sarkozy targeted by a complaint from Anticor

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: FRANCK FIFE / AFP 21:31 pm, April 25, 2023

Anticor filed a complaint on April 7 against Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Guéant and publicist François de La Brosse, suspecting the existence of a corruption pact in connection with the award of the World Cup to Qatar, said Tuesday the anti-corruption association. The complaint, revealed by the daily Le Monde, targets the former head of state, his former right-hand man Claude Guéant, François de La Brosse and former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Ben Jassem al-Thani for influence peddling, corruption of a foreign public official, criminal association, illegal financing of electoral campaign and concealment of this offense.

>> READ ALSO - Hondelatte tells - The year 2008 - 1/5

A complaint filed after an article by Mediapart

To support its complaint, Anticor relies on an article in Mediapart, published in September, reporting the collaboration of François de La Brosse, via his company ZNZ Group, free of charge in Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007, then as communication advisor at the Elysee. In 2011, ZNZ encountering financial difficulties, François de La Brosse, who evaluates at nearly 2.8 million euros the services not invoiced, solicits the former head of state then Claude Guéant.

According to Mediapart, which cites an investigative document, ZNZ and the Qatari company Q.Media then signed a memorandum of understanding in the summer of 2011 for the creation of a web TV, "Enjoy Qatar". Q.Media, owned by Hamad Ben Jassem al-Thani's son-in-law, reportedly paid ZNZ 600,000 euros.

Other invoices mentioned

In its complaint, seen by AFP, Anticor also mentions other invoices and a stake by Q.Media in the French company. "Are we here facing an offer of a corruptive pact that would have been made with the sole and exclusive objective of thanking François de La Brosse for his services, or facing the partial realization of a broader corrupting pact that would have been concluded previously between Nicolas Sarkozy and Qatar?"

"Claude Guéant has not been the subject of any questioning on this old subject for which there is nothing to reproach him," responded his lawyer, Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi. Anticor wants these elements to be attached to the judicial investigation into the conditions under which, on December 2, 2010, FIFA awarded Qatar the organization of the World Cup, which was played last autumn in the emirate. Anticor is a civil party in this case.

"A give-and-take market"?

In this case, opened since 2019, investigators are seeking to determine whether the designation of the Gulf country gave rise to "a give-and-take deal" concluded during a lunch at the Elysée Palace on November 23, 2010 bringing together Nicolas Sarkozy, Michel Platini, then president of UEFA, Tamin ben Hamad al-Thani, Crown Prince of Qatar who became Emir in 2013, and former Prime Minister al-Thani.

>> READ ALSO – Nicolas Sarkozy and Christian Clavier: this terrible drama that brought them closer together

For the association's lawyer, Jean-Baptiste Soufron, "it was important that Anticor take up this case because of its potential links with the award of the World Cup to Qatar on the one hand, but also because of the potential influence peddling and acts of corruption that would have been committed directly in connection with a presidential campaign". Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer did not immediately respond.