The singer and model, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is heard this Thursday morning as a defendant in the investigation into the retraction, in 2020, of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine. The latter had accused Nicolas Sarkozy of having financed his presidential campaign in 2007 with Libyan funds.
Already heard as a witness in this judicial investigation, in June 2023, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is this time questioned in a free hearing of a person implicated by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF ) in Nanterre.
A role of “point of contact”
The former head of state was indicted in this case, at the beginning of October, for concealment of witness tampering and criminal association with a view to preparing trial fraud by an organized gang.
According to elements of the investigation, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was first heard as a simple witness in particular because “Mimi” Marchand, also implicated in the case, had claimed meetings with the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy to justify trips to the home of the Head of State at key moments of the operation.
But according to a source close to the case, the investigating judge has since questioned various elements against him, and in particular on a “desire to conceal” Carla Bruni. Indeed, all of his messages exchanged with Mimi Marchand would have been deleted on June 5, 2021, the day the latter was indicted. The ex-model is therefore suspected of having played at least a role as point of contact in this matter between different protagonists.
Eleven suspects involved
The affair exploded in November 2020, when Ziad Takieddine, the main prosecution witness against Nicolas Sarkozy since 2012, made a spectacular about-face on BFMTV and in Paris Match, declaring that the former head of state had “not received a cent, cash or no cash, for the 2007 presidential election” from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Ziad Takieddine returned to his remarks two months later before the investigating magistrates.
In May 2021, the PNF opened a judicial investigation into these facts, before a first wave of arrests the following month, which notably concerned Mimi Marchand, the “queen of the paparazzi”.
In this case, there are now eleven protagonists, including Carla Bruni, who are suspected of having worked, at varying times and degrees, in this operation which was mainly aimed at deceiving French justice.