Franco-Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, at the centre of what has become known as the ‘Karachi Affair', involving secret political funding from commissions paid in French weapons sales abroad, has given a detailed interview to French TV rolling news channel BFMTV, in which he appeared to address a warning to President Nicolas Sarkozy, now increasingly implicated in the case: "I want to see the president, he has an interest, I think, and France has an interest, that he receives [meets] me for at least 15 minutes."
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Interviewed Thursday by BFMTV, Paris-based Takieddine gave an account, at times incoherent, of his relations with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his long-serving senior staff and political allies. At one point, he launched into a remarkable outburst in which he alleged President Sarkozy's staff included "dirty" people.
"This political storm was wanted [by others] and I think that the best way of being able to conduct it, it is to dirty someone who is clean, instead of presenting those who are dirty, because some dirty ones unfortunately surround the President of France," he said.
Beginning in July, Mediapart has published a series of investigations that have revealed the very close personal and professional ties between Takieddine and the close entourage of the French president (see the complete list of articles at the end of page two).
The Franco-Lebanese businessman is a prime suspect in an ongoing investigation into illegal party funding through sums siphoned off from commissions paid in two major arms deals in the 1990s.
Earlier this month, Takieddine, 61, and two of the president's close entourage, Nicolas Bazire and Thierry Gaubert, were formerly placed under investigation - one step short of being charged - for embezzlement linked to the suspected the funding scam.
Bazire, 54, Managing Director and Head of Development and Acquisitions of French luxury goods group LVMH, and who was President Sarkozy's best man for his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008, was Balladur's 1995 presidential election campaign director. Gaubert, 60, a longstanding friend of the president, was notably one of Sarkozy's senior aides while budget minister under Balladur.
The investigation by Judge Van Ruymbekehas established that Takieddine was imposed as an intermediary in the weapons deals under investigation, on the orders of the government of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, a political mentor for Sarkozy who served as his budget minister. The contracts were for the supply of three Agosta-class submarines to Pakistan, and of three French La Fayette-class frigates to Saudi Arabia, a deal codenamed Sawari 2.
(For more detail on the background to the contracts, and what is thus far known to have led to the deaths of 11 French naval engineers in a bomb atack in 2002, at the heart of the scandal now known as the 'Karachi affair', see a Q&A guide here and a video presentation here).
Van Ruymbeke's investigation centres on the suspicion that illegal kickbacks destined for intermediaries were re-routed to France to fund balladur's 1995 presidential election campaign, for which Nicolas Sarkozy was spokesman. But the implications of the evidence emerging from the judge's enquiries goes further than the two weapons deals which were concluded in 1994.
As Mediapart has revealed, Takieddine continued to play a central role in several weapons sales mounted between 2002 and 2009 by senior aides of Nicolas Sarkozy, before and after he became president (1). The aides included former interior minister and now presidential advisor Brice Hortefeux, a longstanding friend of the president, and current interior minister Claude Guéant, formerly the president's chief-of-staff and, during Sarkozy's earlier ministerial career, his principle private secretary.
Takieddine was an intermediary who Van Ruymbeke has established was imposed by the Balladur government on both the Saudi and Pakistani deals in 1994. He continued to act as an intermediary in several major weapons contracts negotiated by Sarkozy's aides, before and after he became president, between 2002 and 2009.
In the interview with BFMTV, Takieddine gave a sometimes contradictory account of his role and relations with the pinnacle of French political power, and the nature of his activities and relations. His comments follow recent claims by President Sarkozy's long-serving allies that minimise his relations with them, notably French interior minister Claude Guéant, formerly the president's chief-of-staff.
Concerning President Sarkozy, he commented: "Nicolas Sarkozy, I've met him two times in my life and in any case never after the presidential election," he said. "I can reassure you, I have never been to the Elysée Palace [presidential office] one single time, well, I saw Claude Guéant of course, but never Sarkozy."
His comments this week contradict what he said in an interview with Mediapart journalists Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme (now with Le Monde) for their book on the Karachi Affair called Le Contrat (the contract), published last year. "Sarkozy is my friend, OK? And since a longtime," he told them in 2010. "I met him in 1993 during an evening at [former defence minister François] Léotard's home. I helped him to unblock the Miksa contract [weapons sale negotiations with Saudi Arabia], I organized visits to Saudi Arabia. I accompanied him there three times, once as Minister of the Interior, twice as president [...] I still see Sarkozy, like Claude Guéant too."
As Mediapart revealed in its series of recent investigations into Takieddine's activities, he referred to Nicolas Sarkozy, in documents sent to Claude Guéant and published by Mediapart, as "the boss".
During the interview on BFMTV, interviewer Ruth Elkrief asked him: "So you call Nicolas Sarkozy ‘boss'?". Takieddine replied: "Claude Guéant calls him ‘the boss', I have to call him like that."
Takieddine spoke of his involvement in commercial contracts negotiated with Nicolas Sarkozy's team at the interior ministry, after Sarkozy was appointed interior minister in 2002. "Why was I at the Ministry of the Interior? Because when Sarkozy came back to the interior ministry in 2002, he had Guéant as [principle private] secretary". (Takieddine erroneously described Sarkozy as having returned to the interior minister. In fact, it was Nicolas Sarkozy's return to government after seven years, while he had previously been budget minister between 1993 and 1995 under Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.) "The Miksa contract was dragging out," he said, adding that he explained to Guéant "that Saudi Arabia no longer wanted to deal with France as long as it was led by [President Jacques] Chirac." According to his account, he and Guéant then undertook three trips to Saudi Arabia.
For the full details of Takieddine's involvement in the weapons negotiations with Saudi Arabia, see Mediapart's investigation: Sarkozy, the arms dealer, and a secret 350 million-euro commission.
"I am not attached to Sarkozy," he told BFMTV. "I don't know him. I saw him for the first time, it was to translate a conversation between him and his counterpart in Saudi Arabia, at the request of Saudi Arabia, and the second time, I saw him with Philippe Séguin who was his friend too and who I knew very well." [2]
Concerning the sale to Pakistan of the three Agosta-class submarines in 1994, one of the two deals at the centre of the suspected funding scam investigation led by Judge Van Ruymbeke, he gave BFMTV a contradictory account.
Firstly, he claimed that he had "done nothing with the Agosta contract" and that there was "no relation between me and Pakistan, nor me and Agosta" adding: "I demand that the contract made between France and Pakistan for Agosta be produced. Where I am not included."
But immediately afterwards, his comments implied he knew the details of the contract: "Stop looking at this contract from the angle of retro-commissions. Don't forget the [murdered French naval engineers] families. Lots of things led to this contract having been a tiny bit badly executed [...] There is a responsibility of the State, and of the State's company [...]". He said the then-government and its arms exporting company were aware of "disturbances" in the contract.
Referring to President Sarkozy, he said: "I have a demand, I have a suggestion, because I know the dignity of this person, I know him, I don't know him more than that, what has controlled all my action between 1993 and today is the dignity of France, that is today flouted. I say to the French President stop, immediately, because you are the guarantor of the constitution, stop and lift the defence secret on all the contracts, notably Agosta, and notably Sawari 2, so that we stop, we pierce the boil, and people stop saying any old thing about everything. Frankly, it is for him to do that straight away, within 24 hours. It is dignified, he is dignified, he will do it."
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1: Following Edouard Balladur's 1995 election defeat, Nicolas Sarkozy returned to government seven years later when he was appointed as interior minister, under then-President Jacques Chirac, from May 7th 2002 until March 30th 2004. He became finance minister from March 31st 2004 until November 29th 2004, again under President Chirac. He was re-appointed interior minister, still under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, from June 2nd 2005, until March 26th 2007. Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France in 2007 and took up office on May 16th 2007.
2: Philippe Séguin was a leading Gaullist politician who split with Chirac in 1999, and who became president of the Court of Accounts, the French national audit office, from 2004 until his death in 2010.
About friends in high places
During the BFMTV interview Takieddine confirmed his involvement in the sale of three French La Fayette frigates to Saudi Arabia, codenamed Sawari 2, which was completed in November 1994. "My mission, it was a normalizing of relations [that had become] a little deteriorated between France and Saudi Arabia," he said, adding that the deal had provided "35,000 jobs in France".
"I did not touch any commission on the Sawari 2 contract," he said, apparently refferring to money paid by French firms, adding: "I received all my commissions from Saudi Arabia."
He said it was this contract that led to his contact with Nicolas Bazire. "The relations with Bazire were relations in the framework of the visit Balladur made to Saudi Arabia in 1994," he said. "I saw Bazire twice."
Asked about the commissions surrounding the Sawari 2 contract, he gave what appeared to be an incoherent reply. Van Ruymbeke's investigation is examining evidence that Jacques Chirac, who beat his fellow-right rival Balladur in the 1995 elections, halted payment of commissions, or bribes, mostly earmarked for Pakistani officials, after he became president in order to starve Balladur of funding sourced through illegal kickbacks from intermediaries. After Chirac's election, he appointed Dominque de Villepin, who would later become French prime minister, as his chief-of-staff. Takieddine told BFMTV: "I know that this money was not halted, this money was transferred to another destination and that I know of and that I will keep for the president and the justice [authorities]." Then, in a confusing addition to the subject, he said: "He who stopped them [the commissions] should have to answer. I am speaking of Monsieur Villepin. The contracts were halted on Monsieur Villepin's demand."
He spoke of his relations with Thierry Gaubert who, like Bazire and Takieddine, was this month formerly placed under investigation for suspected embezzlement connected to the Sawari 2 deal. Gaubert's estranged wife, Princess Hélène of Yugoslavia, has told Judge Van Ruymbeke that during the 1990s, Gaubert and Takieddine travelled to Switzerland on several occasions to bring cash-filled suitcases back to France that were handed over to Nicolas Bazire, Balladur's 1995 presidential campaign director, in person.
"I have relations with Thierry Gaubert that were [sic] amicable. I once or twice went to Switzerland to buy cigars. I never carried carried suitcases with money inside [...]".
"Nobody prohibits anyone to have friends who are sometimes in one direction or in another, that is their problem," he continued. "I don't pay a friend, perhaps I made one or two property deals that didn't succeed but I have nothing to do...it is not at all the image that is being tried to be made about this relationship." He said of Gaubert: "Never did he present me to people".
He was then questioned about his relations with Jean-François Copé, now head of President Sarkozy's ruling UMP party. Copé was budget minister between 2004 and 2007, part of a period during which Takieddine paid no tax in France, where he is fiscally domiciled and has a wealth estimated at about 40 million euros. (See Mediapart's investigation The well-connected arms dealer and his tax returns).
Mediapart has published evidence that Copé and his family, who were guests at Takieddine's villa in Cap d'Antibes, southern France, enjoyed holidays, paid for by the arms dealer, in London and Venice. Along with the documents reproduced by Mediapart, Takieddine's former British wife, Nicola Johnson, also testified to his largesse towards Jean-François Copé, including holidays in the Lebanon (see British divorcee become key witness in French political funding scandal).
"Copé, he is a friend," Takieddine told BFMTV. "Copé, he can say and certify that it was not a friendship of self-interest. I have never asked one thing that was linked one way or another with his position."
"While Jean-François Copé was Minister of the Budget, I have never, and let them prove it, never asked for any intervention. During these years I had another [tax] control, I never asked, let them find it in the archives that I asked once for an intervention in this affair, or other affairs. That's the first thing. The second, that I have a personal relationship, really, truly, I find that this person corresponds, for me, as being someone I can like."
Nicolas Johnson told Van Ruymbeke that she understood that a recent verification of Takieddine's fiscal accounts launched by French tax inspectors had been halted on order of "higher authorities". In the interview, Takieddine said: "The tax control is still underway, it was not stopped."
Takieddine said he "didn't think" he paid for Copé family holidays, but added: "That I pay a guest the lodgings, that I offer him food, and that afterwards he invites me to a restaurant, it's in my culture, I am not used to inviting people and that they pay for their meals at my home."
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For more on this story and Mediapart's exclusive investigations into the political scandal surrounding the activities of arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, click on the links below:
French judge finds key evidence in illegal funding probe
British divorcee becomes key witness in French political funding scandal
'Everyone's in the merde': the secret cash funding scandal bringing down the house that Sarkozy built
Net closes in on French presidency after funding 'scam' arrests
Arms dealer probe brings illegal funding scandal closer to Sarkozy
The secret financier who brings danger to the Sarkozy clan
Sarkozy, the arms dealer, and a secret 350 million-euro commission
The well-connected arms dealer and his tax returns
How Sarkozy aides saved arms dealer from paradise island 'death blow'
Exclusive: how Sarkozy's team sought grace for Gaddafi's murderous henchman
The arms dealer and his Paris party for the glitterati
Exlusive: how President Sarkozy's team dealt with Gaddafi
When Total paid the bill for the Elysée's secret emissary
How French intelligence shields the sarkozy clan's unofficial emissary
Divorce court freezes arms broker's assets
The French-built stealth offroader that may be hiding Gaddafi
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English version: Graham Tearse