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French court to rule in September in Sarkozy Libya funding case
9:29 CAT | 09 Apr 2025
FILE - Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, denies the charges [File photo: Bertrand Guay / AFP]
A French court will rule on September 25 in the trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy on charges he accepted illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi, a judge said Tuesday.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has denied the charges.
He is already serving a one-year sentence with an electronic bracelet in a separate influence-peddling case.
Prosecutors argue that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.
They have requested the 70-year-old serve a seven-year prison sentence, pay a fine of 300,000 euros ($330,000) and be handed a five-year ban on holding office.
As the trial ended on Tuesday, Sarkozy described the prosecution’s demand as “political and violent” in a “hateful media and political context”.
“I am not here to do politics but to defend my honour and for the truth to be established,” he said, refusing to comment further.
His trial closed soon after another Paris court sentenced far-right leader Marine Le Pen to a jail term and a five-year ban on running for office for embezzling European Union funds.
The move has thrown into doubt her bid to stand for president in 2027 and infuriated her supporters, who have criticised the judiciary.
Prosecutors allege that Sarkozy and senior figures pledged to help Kadhafi rehabilitate his international image in return for campaign financing.
The West has blamed Tripoli for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland and UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.
Sarkozy and 11 others have been on trial since January.
They include Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux, all of whom deny the charges.
The prosecution’s case is based on statements from seven former Libyan dignitaries, trips to Libya by Gueant and Hortefeux, financial transfers, and the notebooks of the former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, found drowned in the Danube in 2012.
Defence attorney Christophe Ingrain on Tuesday urged the court to acquit the ex-president.
He argued Sarkozy, head of the UMP party at the time, did not need the Libyan funding for his presidential campaign.
“Why would he feel the need for another means of funding?” he said.
“How much did he ask for? How would this money have arrived in France? How was it used in the campaign? The prosecution does not say, as this funding does not exist,” he said.
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key figure in the case and a fugitive in Lebanon, claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros from Kadhafi in 2006 and 2007.
But in 2020, Takieddine retracted his statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and close allies may have paid the witness to change his story.
Tristan Gautier, another defence lawyer, also argued Takieddine did not withdraw 670,000 euros in cash from Libya to fund Sarkozy’s campaign, as alleged by the prosecution.
Instead he “systematically used this money for his personal spending” — “astronomical bills in luxury hotels”, “yacht cruises”, or even “work on villas”, Gautier said.
He argued another alleged funding route via Kadhafi’s chief of staff made “no sense” as it involved the purported role of a man who was close to one of Sarkozy’s rivals.
Sarkozy’s career has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election.
But he remains an influential figure and is known to regularly meet with President Emmanuel Macron.
Source: AFP
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