PARIS - For three months, a Paris criminal court will try to untangle the sprawling dossier known as the Libyan financing. According to the investigation, there is ample factual evidence to show that a "corruption deal" of 6 million euros was struck between the former dictator and the former French president with regard to the 2007 campaign.
Did the Faustian bargain with Arab dictator Muammar Gaddafi provide the money for Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 campaign? That is the question that the Paris criminal court will have to answer in a historic trial 20 years after the case began. Kickoff this Monday, January 6.
Three months of hearings, until April 10, thirteen people will sit in the dock. Nicolas Sarkozy is expected at the end of the afternoon. Less than a month after the Court of Cassation upheld his sentence to three years in prison, one of which was corrected (convertible via an electronic bracelet) in the wiretapping affair - which did not prevent him from spending Christmas in the Seychelles - this time the former president of the republic is on trial for "concealment of embezzlement of public funds", "passive corruption", "illegal financing of an election campaign" and even "criminal conspiracy". Nicolas Sarkozy faces a sentence of up to ten years in prison and a fine of €375,000.
At his side are his loyal lieutenants, former ministers Claude Guéant a Brice Hortefeux suspected of having orchestrated the transfer of €6 million of Libyan public money through businessman Ziad Takieddine, himself even went on. Others are suspected of being involved in the laundering or concealment of hundreds of thousands of euros, organised by another central actor in the affair Alexandre Djouhri .
A large-scale case in which justice will attempt to identify a bundle of clues that may or may not demonstrate the reality of the transfer of Libyan funds to Nicolas Sarkozy's entourage to finance his presidential campaign.
Secret conversations
It all started in 2005. In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, the "Wizard" who renounced state terrorism, wanted to get his country out of the ban on nations. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is thinking about the presidential election. The two leaders will meet in Tripoli in October.
A few weeks ago, his chief of staff, Claude Guéant, went to Libya on a preparatory visit. There, he is meeting with Abdallah Senoussi, Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law. A cheesy character, sentenced to life in prison by France for orchestrating the 1989 attack on a UTA DC-10 transport plane that killed 170 people. In December 2005, Brice Hortefeux, loyal to Nicolas Sarkozy and the minister's agent for local authorities, also met with Senoussi. Each time, these talks took place behind the backs of the diplomatic corps, "in confidence and without the presence of the official French authorities".
For the examining magistrate, this secrecy "very difficult to understand, unless we consider that this activity was concealed by secrecy and that it was in fact to raise secret funding for a future campaign" . This is assured by a translator who accompanied Nicolas Sarkozy and Muammar Gaddafi, but also Abdallah Senoussi and several members of the regime's second circle. According to them, the deal is sealed. But should justice believe them?
Contract of Trust
The court will have to rely on a much broader body of evidence. In particular, as to the content of the alleged agreement. Muammar Gaddafi would have assured Nicolas Sarkozy that he would help finance his presidential campaign. Ziad Takkiedine, who played matchmaker, eventually admitted in 2016 that he had given €5 million in cash to Claude Guéant and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Confessions that he eventually recanted over in 2019, during a strange interview that investigators say was organised for a fee by those close to the former French president. Ziad Takkiedine, sentenced in another case (Karachi) to five years in prison in 2020, fled to Lebanon. He cannot be found today and will not be present at the trial.
Another element will be at the heart of the trial over the next three months. An official note dated December 6, 2006, signed by Moussa Koussa, then head of Libya's intelligence services, asking Bachir Saleh, president of the regime's main investment fund, to release 50 million euros to the Sarkozy clan.
What would Libya get from Muammar Gaddafi in exchange? Firstly, the end of the international arrest warrant for terrorist Abdallah Senoussi - which would explain why Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog has been working to defend him. In addition, this agreement would lead to an oil production contract for Total and commercial agreements such as the sale of spy equipment from France to Libya.
Finally, the aim was also to make Tripoli "connected with a European country and gained respect" , investigators say. President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy reserves his first foreign visit for Muammar Gaddafi. Then, a few months later, in December 2007, France gave the dictator a lavish and unprecedented reception in terms of protocol, which lasted six days, during which the Libyan was allowed to pitch his Bedouin tent in the gardens of the Elysia.
The colour of money
For the investigating judge, there is ample factual evidence to show that the Libyan sovereign fund paid nearly 6 million euros in three instalments into the account of Ziad Takieddine - Rossfield - in December 2005 Two million would have been paid directly by Abdallah Senoussi. .
This amount would then pass through various channels. And 440 000 euros were found in an offshore account based in the Bahamas of a close friend and former associate of Nicolas Sarkozy, Thierry Gaubert. This amount will be collected in cash, "for reasons clearly linked to the Nicolas Sarkozy campaign", according to the assignment order. A note in Thierry Gaubert's diary mentions "Ns Campagne", just before the funding was received, in February 2006. Ziad Takieddine himself would have paid out cash before the presidential elections "at least 1.2 million d 'euros' from an account in Switzerland, according to the judges.
To these elements the latter add "abnormal circulation of unaccounted cash during the election campaign" in 2007. They were able to establish that at the end of the campaign at least 250 000 euros in large denominations remained at the 'UMP' headquarters. which were paid out as bonuses. The right-wing party, now LR, assures that this money came from anonymous donations sent by activists. "Unlikely" for the investigators, who believe that the 250,000 euros is only the visible part of the iceberg.
Emergency exfiltration
To prove the reality of the flows, the criminal court will also have to examine what investigators call "attempts to conceal evidence". On the one hand, by revealing "laundry channels" designed to hide transfers from Libya, not only for the 2007 campaign but also for personal enrichment.
In particular, the investigating judges suspect Claude Guéant of buying a Paris apartment for 500 000 euros in 2008 in order to launder the money. A few days before this purchase, the same amount was transferred from abroad to the former minister's account. In 2013, he claimed that the money came from the sale of Flemish paintings, for which he has never provided proof.
The judicial investigation eventually revealed that the €500,000 was the result of a financial arrangement put in place by Bachir Saleh, the head of the Libyan sovereign wealth fund, with the help of an intermediary, Alexandre Djourhi. A privileged contact in Libya for Nicolas Sarkozy, it seems that Béchir Saleh escaped the attacks by the French army against the Libyan regime in 2011. That year, as the Arab Spring blossomed, Nicolas Sarkozy turned against his former ally and is militarily backing an uprising to topple the regime.
Béchir Saleh, exfiltrated to France, left France in May 2012, a few days after the revelation of the note in which Moussa Koussa asked him to release 50 million euros. Declassified intelligence notes and wiretaps showed that this leak was urgently orchestrated by Alexandre Djouhri with the active assistance of Bernard Squarcini, Director of Internal Intelligence and intimate partner of Nicolas Sarkozy and Claude Guéant. For the investigators, this exfiltration was organized, " so that he could not throw light on the disclosure of the facts stated". A new piece of the dizzying puzzle that could reveal a huge state scandal.
Humanité.fr / photo: wikipedia commons / gnews.cz-jav
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