The journalist Hervé Gattegno has been a witness assisted since June 6 in the judicial investigation into the retraction of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine of his accusations of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy, AFP learned from a judicial source on Tuesday. Confirming information from Releasethis source indicated that the former editor of the JDD and of Paris Matchdismissed at the end of 2021, had been the subject of a first appearance interrogation before the investigating judges in two stages, on May 10 and June 6.
“At the end of two days of hearing, during which Hervé Gattegno answered all the judges’ questions, the latter found that there was no serious or concordant indication of any offense whatsoever against him and therefore decided not to indict him, ”welcomed Me Jacqueline Laffont, his lawyer. “Thus, despite the misleading presentation of certain media, Hervé Gattegno is not a party to the proceedings and is not the subject of any prosecution,” added his counsel.
A spectacular about-face
The status of assisted witness, less incriminating than that of indicted, can be modified during the investigation if new elements appear. At this stage, a possible referral to trial in this case could not concern Hervé Gattegno who would be exonerated.
The case exploded in November 2020 when Ziad Takieddine, the main witness for the prosecution against Nicolas Sarkozy since 2012, had operated a spectacular about-face on BFMTV and Paris Match declaring that the former head of state had “not received a penny, cash or no cash, for the presidential election” of 2007 from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
On the run to Lebanon to escape his conviction in the Karachi case, Ziad Takieddine reconsidered his remarks two months later before the French investigating magistrates who came to question him on the spot. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opened a judicial investigation into these facts in May 2021, before a first wave of arrests the following month, which notably concerned the “queen of the paparazzi” Michèle known as Mimi Marchand.
An operation at 608,000 euros
According to the hearings and the elements gathered by the investigation, justice suspects to date at least eight protagonists of having participated, with the possible endorsement of the former head of state, in an operation so that the sulphurous intermediary withdraws its accusations, for a cost recently estimated at at least 608,000 euros by the investigators. Hervé Gattegno and Michèle Marchand accuse each other of having kept Nicolas Sarkozy informed of the steps taken during this alleged operation.
As Mediapart had previously indicated, Hervé Gattegno was heard in an open hearing by the investigators in December 2021. According to his statements, of which AFP was aware, he then denied having committed any offence, assuring that he did not wish that Nicolas Sarkozy be warned of this report and that he had not made any financial dealings.