Mimi Marchand in Le Touquet on April 22, 2017 (illustration). – AFP
That’s the deal in the case. Mimi Marchand, famous figure of the press people indicted in early June in part of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign, was placed in pre-trial detention on Friday, AFP learned from source close to the investigation.
“A wiretap established that she had not respected her judicial review because she spoke to someone” to whom she was not allowed to speak, the source said. Mimi Marchand was imprisoned by a judge of freedoms and detention at the end of a hearing Friday afternoon, according to the same source. His lawyer, Caroline Toby, could not be reached by AFP on Friday evening.
His judicial review provided for a ban on contact with several people, including the former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy, his lawyer Thierry Herzog, and the editorial director of the JDD and of Paris Match, Hervé Gattegno. Mimi Marchand was indicted on June 5 for “witness tampering” and “criminal association with a view to committing an organized gang fraud”.
Ziad Takieddine’s turnarounds
The investigation follows an interview given last November by businessman Ziad Takieddine to a journalist from the weekly Paris Match, who had traveled to Lebanon with a photographer from BestImage, the agency of Mimi Marchand, 74, Gala and Here is, close to the powerful, whose secrets she exposes – or protects – and in 2016 became the guardian of the image of the Macron couple.
In this interview, Takieddine withdrew his statements against Nicolas Sarkozy, while he accused him for years of having received money for his 2007 presidential campaign from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Two months later, questioned by the investigating judges in charge of the Libyan case, the Franco-Lebanese intermediary, known for his versatility, claimed that his words had been “distorted” by Paris Match who, he added, ” belongs to a friend of Sarkozy ”.
Four other people suspected of having taken part in the organization of this controversial interview have been indicted. Among them, the advertiser Arnaud de la Villesbrunne, the businessman Pierre Reynaud and Noël Dubus, a man already convicted of fraud. The photographer author of the photo and video report, Sébastien Valiela, who is very close to Mimi Marchand – he was the one who published the photos which revealed the affair between François Hollande and Julie Gayet – was heard on Tuesday as a “free suspect” in this survey.