The court did not believe in Isabelle Adjani’s desire to appear at her trial for tax fraud and money laundering. The referral request was therefore rejected on Thursday by the Paris criminal court, which decided to judge the case in his absence. The artist is accused of having concealed a loan donation in 2013 and of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal in 2016 and 2017, which she vigorously contests.
At the start of the hearing, her defense requested a postponement of the trial, arguing that Isabelle Adjani, currently in the United States, suffers from “an acute pathology incompatible with flying”. “This is not a refusal of complacency,” pleaded Me Olivier Pardo, relying on a medical certificate. “She wants to explain herself, she wants to be there.”
An absent witness
The lawyers also justified their request due to the impossibility for Mamadou Diagna NDiaye to come and testify. “He is an essential witness, because he is the lender of the loan discussed,” they said. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opposed this request, judging the medical certificate “not detailed”. “I believe today that there are reasons to believe that she did not voluntarily put herself in a position to come,” declared the prosecutor, who added that the testimony of Mamadou Diagna NDiaye had already “ was collected during the investigation.
After half an hour of deliberation, the court rejected this request, considering “that it was not sufficiently established that Ms. Adjani really intended to be present”. The president recalled that the summons before the court dated from June and that the defense had provided a return plane reservation taken on October 16 for “a flight which arrived this morning at 11 a.m.”, i.e. only 2.5 hours before the trial.
Fictitious domiciliation
The 68-year-old actress and singer is suspected of having passed off a donation of 2 million euros as a loan, which would have allowed her to evade 1.2 million euros in transfer taxes. This sum was transferred to him by Mamadou Diagna NDiaye, an influential Senegalese businessman, president of the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee and member of the International Olympic Committee.
The actress claims that he is a friend, godfather of her son, and that the loan was duly registered with the tax authorities. She is also accused of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal, thus evading 236,000 euros of income tax, and of having transferred the sum of 119,000 euros through an “undeclared American bank account”. On these two points, it also contests any infringement.