New episode in one of the greatest affairs of French politics in the 21st century. On Wednesday, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office justified, in an impressive 425-page indictment, its request for a trial for 13 people, including Nicolas Sarkozy and three of his former ministers, in the sprawling affair of the Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign. offenses are retained: passive corruption, concealment of embezzlement of Libyan public funds, illicit financing of electoral campaigns and associations of criminals.
The public prosecutor considers that he has a “set of converging testimonies from former Libyan dignitaries on the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy (…), in October 2005, asked Muammar Gaddafi for hidden financial support” for his 2007 presidential campaign: “ a corrupt pact” would have been concluded. The PNF adds that the investigation “highlighted the existence of diplomatic, economic and judicial counterparts”, for example the return of Libya to the diplomatic scene or the conclusion of contracts, “but also financial flows atypical and troubles coming from Libya via, in particular, Ziad Takieddine”.
“Opaque circuits for the circulation of Libyan funds”
For the prosecution, testimonies, personal notebooks of a former Libyan minister found dead in 2012 and above all the computer archives of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine, prior to the public revelation of the affair, come to prove it, thus counteracting according to the PNF the thesis of the defense of a “fable built retrospectively” to torpedo the ex-president. “While it seems obvious that all of the Libyan funds initially intended” to finance the campaign of the former UMP candidate “was not mobilized for this purpose”, the investigation revealed “opaque circuits of circulation of Libyan funds having ultimately resulted in cash disbursements in a timeframe and chronology compatible with occult use” during the 2007 presidential election.
On the strength of the investigations carried out by the financial investigators of Oclciff, the PNF estimates, for example, at 5.9 million euros the money which transited between January and November 2006 from the Libyan State to an account of the company Rossfield, of which Ziad Takieddine was the economic beneficiary. However, during this period, 440,000 euros were transferred to a Bahamian account for the benefit of Thierry Gaubert, a former close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, while Ziad Takieddine himself withdrew in cash around one million euros from a second account fed by the Rossfield account.
“Effective participation” of former ministers
The heaviest accusation remains that of criminal association, and it is also the most risky for the former head of state, because it is considered easier to bring before a criminal court. For the magistrates, “several relatives of Nicolas Sarkozy have consistently acted as intermediaries, sometimes official”, his former ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, “sometimes unofficial”, the intermediaries Alexandre Djouhri and Ziad Takieddine, in order to to obtain Libyan financial support for the 2007 presidential election or to “facilitate the implementation of counterparties (economic, diplomatic and legal) resulting from this support”.
The indictment underlines the “active, even essential” role of Claude Guéant and the “effective and conscious participation” of Brice Hortefeux in this “project”. And Nicolas Sarkozy? “These acts, which most of the time were initiated by (his) relatives, could not, by nature, be committed without the approval and the perfect knowledge of the latter”, slice the public prosecutor. The former head of state for his part disputes all the accusations. The final decision on a trial will be taken by the financial investigating magistrates, probably before September.