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ER Editor: We have absolutely no idea why this trial has taken so long to come to pass. French justice grinds slowly, but this seems ridiculous. Critical timing? So much is curiously coming to a head right now, just as Trump officially comes back into office (he never left).
We’ve heard it rumoured that French elites have been brought to justice already. Likely under EO 13818, formulated to take down perpetrators of corruption and crimes against humanity. So Sarkozy is probably a double. A little study of Google images shows that a number of key French influencers and politicians look different these days. Check the charges against him below – Sarkozy qualifies under this Executive Order.
Pure speculation and proof of nothing (see Sabrina Gal for January 5 on Telegram for more creative ideas than Sean Penn). And no, Benghazi hasn’t gone away (see original Twitter post) —
I SPY SEAN PENN AS SARKOZY pic.twitter.com/zTKMIcnULO
— The Sacred Blue Tent (@SabrinaGal182) January 6, 2025
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ER: Le Monde is behind a paywall.
Sarkozy’s most dreaded trial is opening. He faces accusations Libya’s Gaddafi funded his 2007 campaign.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is accused of having, in 2005, entered into a ‘corruption pact’ with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The 12 other defendants include three former French ministers, a former Libyan official and the middlemen Ziad Takieddine and Alexandre Djouhri.
FRANCK JOHANNES for LE MONDE
It’s the trial that Nicolas Sarkozy has been dreading the most: the one for the alleged Libyan financing of his victorious 2007 presidential election campaign. The former president stands accused of having, starting in 2005, entered into a “corruption pact” with Muammar Gaddafi, to facilitate the Libyan dictator’s return to the international stage in exchange for financial and industrial benefits. A few months after his election, in July 2007, the newly elected French president visited Tripoli. Five months later, he hosted the Libyan leader in Paris, welcoming him with great fanfare. Later, Sarkozy would lead an international coalition to intervene in Libya, which had risen up against the dictator, who was killed in October 2011. The bombings did not help the recovery of the regime’s archives.
The former president now stands trial in Paris, from Monday, January 6 until April 10, for “corruption, concealment of misappropriation of public funds, illegal campaign financing and criminal conspiracy.” Moreover, he will soon have to defend himself while wearing an electronic bracelet, after having been definitively sentenced, on December 18, to a three-year sentence, of which two years suspended, for corruption and influence peddling, in an offshoot case from the Libyan one.
CONTINUE READING HERE
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Ex-French leader Sarkozy on trial over alleged Gaddafi funds: All to know
If convicted, Nicolas Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison for a ‘corruption pact’ with the late Libyan leader.
AL JAZEERA
The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began on Monday over allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal election campaign financing from the regime of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Here is all we know about the trial:
What is the trial about?
The trial of the right-wing former president and 11 other people, including former ministers, comes after a 10-year anti-corruption probe.
The court will hear allegations that the Libyan government funded Sarkozy’s election campaign in exchange for diplomatic, legal and business favours.
The 69-year-old former leader faces charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and criminal association. If convicted, Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison.
In October 2023, French judges charged Sarkozy with illegal witness tampering while his wife, model and singer Carla Bruni, was charged in 2024 with hiding evidence in the same case.
The case first came to light in March 2011, when a Libyan news agency reported that the Gaddafi government had financed Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.
In 2014, news outlet French24 reported that in a recorded interview with broadcaster France 3 TV from 2011, Gaddafi reportedly said “Sarkozy is mentally deficient … It’s thanks to me that he became president … We gave him the funds that allowed him to win.”
Al Jazeera, however, has not been able to verify the veracity of the interview or the claims attributed to Gaddafi.
In the same year, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi told Euronews that Sarkozy had taken campaign funding from Libya:
“The first thing we ask of this clown is that he return the money to the Libyan people. We helped him so he could help the Libyan people, but he let us down.”
Sarkozy welcomed Gaddafi to the Elysee Palace in Paris in 2007. However, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests broke out in 2011, Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya.
In October 2011, Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces backed by NATO’s forces, bringing an end to his four decades of rule.
Sarkozy said that allegations of campaign financing by Gaddafi’s inner circle are motivated by revenge for his backing of the anti-government uprising in Libya.
In 2012, Mediapart, a French online news outlet, published a note reportedly from the Libyan secret services from December 2006. The note allegedly mentioned Gaddafi’s agreement to provide Sarkozy with 50 million euros ($52m at current rates) for campaign financing. Sarkozy claimed the document was fake, rejecting the allegations.
In 2016, French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered 5 million euros ($5.2m) in cash from Libya to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff. However, Takieddine retracted this statement in 2020.
Sarkozy’s trial will span three months and is scheduled to run until April 10. The verdict is expected at a later date.
Who is Nicolas Sarkozy?
Sarkozy, 69, was the president of France between 2007 and 2012. He retired from active politics in 2017.
He was the leader of the liberal-conservative Republicans party, then called the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). He won the 2007 election with 53 percent of the vote, beating Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party (PS).
Sarkozy has rejected the allegations of wrongdoing.
Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination. He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution. There was no Libyan financing of the campaign,” Sarkozy’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain said in a Sunday statement, according to AFP news agency.
“We want to believe the court will have the courage to examine the facts objectively, without being guided by the nebulous theory that poisoned the investigation.”
What are the other cases against Sarkozy?
Sarkozy has been convicted in two other legal cases.
Last month, the highest court in France, the Court of Cassation, upheld a 2021 conviction against Sarkozy of bribery and influence peddling. He was sentenced to one year of house arrest and was ordered to wear an electronic bracelet over that period. Sarkozy has said he would bring this case to the European Court of Human Rights. This case was revealed through a wiretapped phone call during the Libya financing investigation.
Last year, an appeals court in Paris upheld a conviction for Sarkozy in another campaign financing case for his failed 2012 re-election bid. He lost the 2012 election to Francois Hollande from PS and was alleged to have knowingly exceeded spending limits. The court ruled that he should serve six months in prison, with another six months suspended. Sarkozy has appealed against the verdict at the Court of Cassation.
Are there other defendants?
Besides Sarkozy, there are 11 other defendants in the trial.
These include Takieddine; Claude Gueant, who is a former close aide of Sarkozy; Eric Woerth, Sarkozy’s former head of campaign financing, who now serves in parliament as a member of French President Emmanuel Macron’s party; and Brice Hortefeux, a former minister.
Takieddine fled to Lebanon in June 2020 after a French court sentenced him to five years in jail in a separate corruption case.
Source
Featured image source: https://x.com/VoxPopuli_Media/status/1876239249370181655
Featured image source, Sarkozy and BHL: https://x.com/CrimesDeFrance/status/1702688793633951749
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