The Paris home of former president Nicolas Sarkozy has been searched by police officers working as part of an investigation into a series of suspected corruption scams surrounding L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
In addition to targeting the home in Paris's 16th arrondissement – owned by Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – on Tuesday 3rd July, investigators also visited the offices he used while president at rue de Miromesnil in the city's 8th arrondissement and the offices of his lawyers Arnaud Claude and partners at boulevard Malesherbes.
As part of a wide-ranging investigation into the alleged scams surrounding Bettencourt, Bordeaux-based investigating judge Jean-Michel Gentil is looking into claims that part of the billionaire’s fortune was used to illegally fund outgoing Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.
It is the first time that a former president's home has been searched in this way by investigators. Former president Jacques Chirac, who served from 1995 to 2007, was convicted in December 2011 on charges of misuse of public funds relating to his time as mayor of Paris. But in that case searches were only carried out at City Hall in Paris, Chirac's legal firm and the offices of his political party the RPR.
Sarkozy, who was said to be away at the time of the searches on a private family visit in Canada, lost his presidential immunity from prosecution in June, a month after leaving office. He has always denied any wrongdoing in the case.
According to sources close to the investigation, investigators chose to gather all the other evidence they could before going ahead with the searches at Sarkozy's home and offices, which were carried out by police officers from the brigade financière or fraud squad. In recent weeks officers have been discreetly contacting suppliers and service providers who were involved with Sarkozy's successful 2007 campaign, though it is not known what information they have gathered.
A lawyer close to the Bettencourt investigation meanwhile says that the investigating judge was unhappy at the tactics employed by the former president’s lawyers in the face of claims that Sarkozy had meetings with the Bettencourt family over the alleged illegal campaign funds. “Judge Gentil did not appreciate the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy's defence lawyer, Thierry Herzog, announced in the press that his client's diaries had been placed with a court bailiff and that he had done nothing wrong. It was very clumsy,” said the lawyer.” He said that rather than preventing his client having to be summoned to give evidence, Herzog had in fact prompted the judge to carry out other investigations.
Herzog's statement was published in the newspaper Le Journal de Dimanche on June 17th, just as Sarkozy's presidential immunity ended. In it Herzog said the diaries showed that the “claimed secret meetings” that Sarkozy was supposed to have had at the Bettencourt home “clearly could not have taken place”.
Cash withdrawals in Switzerland
Judge Gentil's investigation has already targeted a senior politician close to Sarkozy. In February, Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign treasurer, Eric Woerth, 56, was placed under formal investigation in the Bettencourt case for “handling" illegal funding of Sarkozy’s campaign and for “influence peddling”. Woerth, 56, a former budget and labour minister, was also treasurer of Sarkozy’s UMP party between 2002 and 2010. A Member of Parliament who was re-elected in June and mayor of the town of Chantilly, north of Paris, Woerth has denied any role in illegal funding of the campaign.
As Mediapart reported in March, Bordeaux-based investigating judge Jean-Michel Gentil has established that two, separate 400,000-euro cash withdrawals were made from Bettencourt’s Swiss bank accounts in February and April 2007, when Sarkozy was running for the presidency. The timing of the withdrawals matches other evidence in the case suggesting the money was destined to help fund Sarkozy’s bid.
René Merckt, a Geneva-based lawyer who for some 30 years managed the secret, tax-dodging accounts in Switzerland belonging to Bettencourt and her late husband André, has told the investigation that the L’Oréal matriarch’s former wealth manager, Patrice de Maistre, personally ordered the withdrawals.
These were made via a complex “compensatory” financial route, by which the sums were issued in banknotes in Paris from the offices of a securities firm which had previously been credited with the same amount in Switzerland.
Merckt, who was questioned earlier this month for the third time by the Swiss authorities acting in cooperation with the Bordeaux judge, testified that no such withdrawals had been made from accounts belonging to Bettencourt and her husband prior to February 2007.
It has been established that Maistre and Woerth met together in Paris on February 7th 2007, two days after the first 400,000-euro cash withdrawal was made. The two men have confirmed their meeting, which they have described as a social occasion.
Maistre, 63, was held in preventive detention in a jail near Bordeaux from March 2012 until June 2012, when he was freed on bail. Last year he was placed under investigation – one step short of being charged – for suspected corruption and for “abuse” of the mental frailty of Liliane Bettencourt, 89, who, a medical report has established, suffers from a progressive state of dementia that had already begun in 2007. She is also partially deaf.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
The majority shareholder of L'Oréal, the world's largest cosmetics company which was founded by her father, Eugène Schueller, Bettencourt has a personal fortune estimated by Forbes in 2011 to total 17 billion euros, making her one of the wealthiest individuals in France and the wealthiest woman in Europe.
Among the evidence held by Gentil is a diary belonging to François-Marie Banier, a Parisian socialite once close to the widowed Bettencourt and who is under investigation in a parallel enquiry by the Bordeaux magistrates for defrauding the billionaire of almost 1 billion euros. It contains an entry written on the same day as the second 400,000-euro cash withdrawal, on April 26th 2007, which read: “De Maistre tells me that Sarkozy is again asking for money”.
For more on the Bettencourt affair and issues raised in this article, click on the links below:
As Sarkozy leaves office, the Bettencourt affair closes in
Judge links L'Oréal heiress cash withdrawals to Sarkozy campaign funding
Sarkozy campaign treasurer under investigation for illegal funding, influence peddling
L'Oréal heiress ordered to pay 77.7 million euros after tax scam probe
Behind the Bettencourt affair: the battle for L'Oréal
A scandal too far: Bettencourt magistrate is disowned
French prosecutor in Bettencourt affair illegally spied journalists' phone calls
The eerie plot penned by L'Oréal family scandal dandy in 1971
Dinners, cash and Sarkozy: what Bettencourt's accountant told Mediapart
Bettencourt butler bites back: 'I saw L'Oréal family destroyed'
Bettencourt battle back after L'Oréal heiress signs away 143 million euros
The political guard watching over L'Oréal
Bettencourt chauffeur adds to Sarkozy campaign fund allegations
Bettencourt tapes stolen in mystery break-ins targetting Mediapart, Le Point and Le Monde
French interior minister drops libel action against Mediapart
Why we need a strong media in France
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English version: Michael Streeter