Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted on Friday as part of an investigation into possible fraudulent maneuvers aimed at exonerating him from suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign.
The former head of state (2007-2012), who arrived by car around 9:40 a.m. local time at the Paris judicial court, was indicted (charged) for concealment of witness tampering and criminal association with a view to the preparation of judgment fraud by an organized gang, a judicial source told AFP.
This decision opens the way to a possible new trial for this major figure of the French right.
It was taken after around thirty hours of interrogation in total over three and a half days, led by two financial magistrates responsible for this judicial investigation opened in May 2021 on this operation, called “Saving Sarkozy” by the one of the defendants.
By this indictment, the judges mean that they believe they have sufficient serious or consistent evidence as to his participation in the maneuvers developed by at least nine other protagonists involved to varying degrees and times, possibly by giving them his approval.
The first step of the operation would have consisted of obtaining the retraction of the accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy from the sulfurous Franco-Lebanese intermediary Ziad Takieddine, at the end of 2020, in exchange for possible remuneration.
Then, in the first half of 2021, some of those accused would have tried to obtain proof that the resounding Libyan document published between the two rounds of the 2012 presidential election by the French investigative site Mediapart and mentioning financing of 50 million euros was false.
According to the judicial source, Mr. Sarkozy was also placed under the status of assisted witness for the offense of participation in a criminal association with a view to committing the offense of active corruption of foreign judicial personnel in Lebanon.
Certain protagonists of this operation are in fact suspected of having tried to bribe Lebanese magistrates so that they would release a Gaddafi son detained in this country, so that the family of the late Libyan dictator would facilitate the exoneration of Mr. Sarkozy.
For investigators, according to recently established figures, at least 608,000 euros (CA$880,000) could have been used for the entire operation, the fraudulent content of which the protagonists dispute.
“Madness”
Heard in June by investigators specializing in financial affairs, the ex-president certainly said he had been informed by one of the suspects — “Mimi” Marchand, press figure people in France — in October 2020, a month before the information was public, of a wish by Mr. Takieddine to change the version.
But according to his hearings revealed by the French daily Release and consulted by AFP, Mr. Sarkozy assured that “the very idea that I could push directly or indirectly for the financing of nickel-plated feet is a crazy idea”.
“No concrete material element, telephone, can incriminate me in this madness, neither near nor far,” assured the former head of state.
Questioned at length about his diary and telephone calls at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, which suggest meetings or conversations at key moments with protagonists in the case, Mr. Sarkozy mentioned some “coincidences”, but denied any contact significant.
For him, “this whole little gang is only concerned with showing off each other” by pretending to be in contact with him.
This decision by the magistrates adds to Mr. Sarkozy’s already busy judicial agenda. In addition to the trial over Libyan financing of his 2007 campaign, scheduled for early 2025, he will be tried next November on appeal for the illegal financing of his lost 2012 presidential campaign.