Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will go on trial on Monday over the biggest political financing scandal in modern French history, accusing him of receiving millions of euros in illegal election campaign funding from the regime of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The historic trial of a right-wing former French president and 12 others – including three former government ministers – for criminal conspiracy to obtain large-scale funding from a foreign dictator has worsened voters’ already low trust in the French political class. Threatens to do.
Following a 10-year anti-corruption investigation, the court will hear allegations of what investigating magistrates called a “corruption pact” between Sarkozy and the Libyan regime, in which middlemen arranged in Paris to illegally finance Sarkozy’s victory. Suitcases filled with cash were delivered to the ministry buildings. 2007 presidential campaign.
The court will investigate whether the Libyan regime requested diplomatic, legal and commercial assistance in exchange for financing Sarkozy’s presidential campaign.
One of these alleged requests for favors belonged to Gaddafi’s spy chief and enforcer Abdullah al-Senussi. In 1999, a French court sentenced Senussi to life in prison in absentia for his role in the 1989 bombing of a UTA passenger plane over Niger, which killed 170 people. The court will hear how Sarkozy’s team was allegedly requested by the Libyan regime to find a way to lift France’s international arrest warrant against Senussi.
Laure Heinich, a lawyer for 15 relatives of those killed in the UTA plane bombing, said her clients would tell the court about their shock at hearing that “money was being exchanged” for “the arrest of the man who killed their family members.” can be provided. He said the alleged corruption deal would mean that “the money that Nicolas Sarkozy used to get elected in 2007 was money tainted with the blood of these families”.
Sarkozy, who was president between 2007 and 2012, has denied all wrongdoing in the case.
Three-month trial will reveal Sarkozy’s complex relationships GaddafiAutocratic Libyan leader, whose brutal 41-year rule was characterized by human rights abuses and who was internationally isolated due to his regime’s links to terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. Bombing was also included.
Members of Sarkozy’s entourage reportedly met with members of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya in 2005, when Sarkozy was interior minister. Soon after becoming French president in 2007, Sarkozy invited the Libyan leader for a lengthy state visit to Paris, and set up his Bedouin tent in the gardens near the Elysee. Sarkozy was the first Western leader to welcome Gaddafi on a full state visit since relations broke down in the 1980s over Gaddafi’s pariah status as a sponsor of state terrorism.
But in 2011, Sarkozy placed France at the forefront of NATO-led air strikes against Gaddafi’s troops, helping rebel fighters overthrow his regime. Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebels in October 2011.
A documentary about the case, no one understands anything (No One Understands), telling the story of the investigation, will be released in French cinemas on Wednesday.
If convicted on corruption charges, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison, along with former Elysee Secretary General and Interior Minister Claude Guent and Sarkozy’s close ally Brice Hortefex, who also served as Interior Minister. Might be possible. All deny wrongdoing.
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Also on trial is Sarkozy’s former budget minister, Eric Worth, now a lawmaker with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party. He denies wrongdoing.
In March 2011, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi told Euronews: “Sarkozy must give back the money he took from Libya to finance his election campaign. We financed his campaign and we have proof… The first thing we are demanding is that this clown give the money back to the Libyan people.
Chanez Mensous of the anti-corruption group sherpawho is a civilian party to the trial, said: “This case gives us a clear view of what international corruption is today and what its implications are. What is often not emphasized enough is the damage caused to the civilian population, namely the Libyan population, because this is about the embezzlement of Libyan public funds.
Sarkozy has already received two court convictions. Last month, France’s highest court confirmed the verdict against him for corruption and illegal attempts to influence a judge to gain benefits. He has been ordered to wear an electronic tag for a year, a first for a former head of state. He is challenging the decision in the European Court for Human Rights.
In a separate trial, Sarkozy was convicted of illegally concealing overspending in the 2012 presidential election, which he lost to Socialist candidate François Hollande. He has appealed.
Fabrice Arfi, an investigative journalist for the website mediapartwho broke the story in 2011, said that the magnitude of corruption allegations in the Libya case would be an “electric shock” to French society. “The entire image of France is at stake,” he said. “People will discover the compromising behavior of a former president and his team with a terrible dictator at the diplomatic, economic, judicial and financial levels.”