Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been formally placed under investigation concerning an alleged operation to induce a key witness in another case against him to retract his evidence. The ex-head of state had a scheduled meeting with investigating judges last Tuesday, squeezed in between two interviews and three signings of his appropriately- named latest book 'Le Temps des Combats' ('A Time of Combat'). Then, after four lengthy days of questioning, the ex-head of state was put under investigation for being the “beneficiary of witness tampering” and “criminal conspiracy” to deceive the judges in the separate Libyan funding affair. That Libyan funding affair centres on claims that Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign received funding from the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
The witness tampering case concerns the fake retraction by Ziad Takieddine, one of the alleged agents of corruption in the Libyan funding affair. In comments to the media -Paris Match magazine and BFMTV news channel - in the autumn of 2020 Takieddine suddenly insisted Nicolas Sarkozy was not guilty of any wrongdoing, having previously made strong allegations against him in statements to the judicial investigation itself. This miraculous about-turn was greeted by Nicolas Sarkozy at the time with the triumphant words: “The truth has finally come out!”
Since then, judges and detectives from the police's anti-corruption squad, Office Central de Lutte contre la Corruption et les Infractions Financières et Fiscales (OCLCIFF), have suspected that there were secret financial negotiations and manoeuvres which resulted in Ziad Takieddine's abrupt U-turn.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The examining magistrates have even managed to cost the operation at 600,000 euros in respect of the cash paid out (for legal fees, travel and so on), while documents have revealed that a sum of four million euros was promised to Takieddine himself. But the operation, which was simply called 'Save Sarko', has turned into something of a legal boomerang for the former president. Far from being “saved”, Nicolas Sarkozy has found himself embroiled in yet more legal allegations.
Convicted on appeal in the so-called Bismuth affair, convicted at first instance in the Bygmalion election funding affair and facing a trial in the Libyan election funding affair itself, the former head of state is the tenth person so far to be placed under investigation in the Takieddine fake retraction case. Like all those being investigated he benefits from a presumption of innocence.
On the face of it, what the general public remembers is the thundering announcement in early November 2020, in Paris Match and on BFMTV, of an event that was supposedly going to change the course of the Libyan election funding affair. The middleman Ziad Takieddine was revealing in Beirut – where he had fled – that he had lied when he was originally questioned by judge Serge Tournaire, who for a long time led the investigation into the Sarkozy-Gaddafi funding case. According to Takieddine's account, since refuted, the judge had promised to get judicial orders lifted on all his seized properties if he accused – even falsely – the former French president of having been bribed by the Libyan dictator.
Armed with this retraction, Nicolas Sarkozy immediately blamed the French justice system, one of his favourite refrains. And he suddenly accepted as gospel the declarations of a man whom just a a few months earlier he was still describing as “crazy” and a “fraud”.
Sarkozy's connections with several people in the case
Over the last two years a curious collection of individuals has been at the centre of the fake retraction investigation led by judge Vincent Lemonier. Until Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under investigation, at the top of this group was businesswoman Michèle 'Mimi' Marchand, a friend of both Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni and Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron. She is suspected of having overseen operation 'Save Sarko' from start to finish.
Around 'Mimi' Marchand the investigation has identified several individuals mixed up in this fake retraction. These include a spook, Noël Dubus, who has been convicted in the past and who was a key figure in Takieddine's apparent retraction; a property developer, Pierre Reynaud, who has since died; a publicist, Arnaud de la Villesbrunne, who had worked on a Sarkozy election campaign; and a high-tech businessman close to both Sarkozy and interior minister Gérald Darmanin, David Layani. The last three are all suspected of having financed the operation. Finally, there is a Libyan secret service agent, Hamadi Matug, who intervened on behalf of various figures in the affair.
In June Nicolas Sarkozy was questioned by detectives at a police station in Nanterre, west of Paris, as was his wife Carla Bruni and his friend and lawyer Thierry Herzog, who was the former president's accomplice in “corruption” and “influence peddling” in the Bismuth affair, according to the ruling of the Paris court of appeal. As Mediapart has already reported, during that questioning the ex-president admitted having had a brief meeting at his home with convicted fraudster Noël Dubus on December 17th 2020. He was introduced to Sarkozy by Mimi Marchand, who had herself strongly denied that any such meeting took place between the former president and Dubus.
Nicolas Sarkozy admitted having dedicated his previous book – the equally appropriately-titled 'Temps des Tempêtes ('Stormy Times') – to Dubus with a very clear message that was discovered by investigators: “Thanks for everything. Your friend.” The former president explained to detectives that this dedication had been suggested, word for word, by 'Mimi' Marchand. She had given him post-it notes and he had apparently been unaware to whom he was addressing these warm words.
You know Sarko, he wants to get involved in everything.
The investigation is also looking at the close relations between Hervé Gattegno, the managing editor of Paris Match magazine at the time, and Nicolas Sarkozy. It was this well-known weekly publication, owned by the Lagadère Group, where Nicolas Sarkozy is a board member, which choreographed Takieddine's fake retraction as if it were a genuine turning point in the Libyan funding affair.
In a telephone conversation with owner Arnaud Lagadère which was intercepted by detectives, the journalist said that he had learnt that Michèle Marchand had “alerted” Sarkozy, “believing she was doing the right thing and wanting to show off in the eyes of so-and-so”. In Gattegno's view it was “madness” however. “In one fell swoop he's being handed this thing, how do you think he can resist that? And you know Sarko, he wants to get involved in everything, you know, he wants to take charge.”
Questioned by the judge, Hervé Gattegno did not rule out the possibility that secret negotiations might have taken place ahead of the Takieddine interview in the magazine, but said he was completely unaware of any such operation. He has not been put under investigation and has been placed under the less incriminating status of 'assisted witness'.
On the trail of 'Zebedee'
A third figure who has become central to the investigation, and who has been placed under investigation, is David Layani. A leading figure in the French Tech initiative with his company OnePoint, Layani is close to former minister Brune Poirson, the current interior minister Gérald Darmanin and Nicolas Sarkozy. He is suspected of having paid up to 72,000 euros to fund a second stage of operation 'Save Sarko, which involved getting Takieddine to confirm his retraction in front of a notary in Beirut so that it could be sent officially to the French judges. David Layani supposedly paid by way of an allegedly fictitious contract signed with Bestimage, Michèle Marchand's company.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
When questioned by detectives Nicolas Sarkozy portrayed David Layani as a “friendly acquaintance” whom he had met in 2018. In the summer of 2020 the former president had bestowed the Order of Merit on him in the office of Gérald Darmanin, then a treasury minister. Nicolas Sarkozy and David Layani also met frequently on the board of directors of the hotel and casino group Barrière, where the former president sought to reconcile the group's patriarch, Dominique Desseigne, and his son Alexandre, who were at war over control of the group.
Several messages exchanged by figures in the fake retraction affair, which were recovered by investigators despite having been deleted, mention the involvement of David Layani and Nicolas Sarkozy. The latter appeared under various nicknames: 'Ines' for his initials 'NS' – and 'Zébulon' which is the French version of the name 'Zebedee' in 'The Magic Roundabout' children's television programme. In addition, a note from France's domestic intelligence agency the DGSI, which the investigating judges were able to get declassified, cites the name of David Layani in December 2020 as a possible funder of the 'Save Sarko' operation.
When confronted with information that might support the idea that Takieddine's retraction had been bought, Nicolas Sarkozy told detectives in June: “I have never asked anyone to give money to Takieddine.”
More anecdotally, detectives also described in a report how, on the day of his arrest in October 2021, David Layani had used the chance to have a shower before being taken into custody to hurriedly try to call Nicolas Sarkozy. In vain, as the newspaper Libération reported. David Layani has “strongly” denied this version of events. His lawyer Mathias Chichportich says that he alerted the judge to the “physical impossibility of this call, as also confirmed by the different phases of the search”.
On the case itself, Mathias Chichportich points out that his client has “always denied committing any offence”. In the lawyer's view, the “investigations have shown that he was completely unaware” of the operation carried out by Michèle Marchand and her associates and that “the funds paid as part of the contract with Bestimage [editor's note, Michèle Marchand's company] went through a transparent process and conform to market prices and practices”. The lawyer, who is calling for the case against his client to be dismissed at the end of the investigation, concluded: “David Layani has only appeared in this dossier because his name has been manipulated by certain protagonists.”
Having been placed under investigation for being the “beneficiary of witness tampering” and “criminal conspiracy” with the the aim of deceiving the judges in the Libyan funding affair, Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under the intermediate status of 'assisted witness' for “criminal conspiracy to commit the offence of active corruption of foreign judicial personnel in Lebanon”. This refers to another aspect of the 'Save Sarko' operation, linked to a wish to free Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal from jail in Lebanon so that he would clear the former president over the Libyan funding affair.
As the news emerged that he had been placed under investigation over the fake retraction affair, Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyers Jean-Michel Darrois and Christophe Ingrain issued a statement. In it they said: “When it comes to the more serious of the offences originally envisaged (criminal conspiracy to corrupt foreign judicial personnel), Nicolas Sarkozy was placed under the status of assisted witness, which demonstrates that there is no evidence against him.
“It's now established that Nicolas Sarkozy is neither the author nor an accomplice to any possible witness tampering. He has only been placed under investigation for supposedly benefiting from it.”
The statement continued: “Since 2013 Ziad Takieddine has delivered around twenty different versions of the supposed Libyan funding of the 2007 campaign. None of his versions has ever shown the slightest credibility. The legal system cannot continue to give credibility to Ziad Takieddine's declarations when they accuse Nicolas Sarkozy and then, conversely, consider that they've been manipulated when they clear him.”
It concluded that in relation to the alleged offence of seeking to deceive the judges, “Nicolas Sarkozy emphasises that he never took the slightest procedural initiative. To rejoice over yet another version [of events] from Ziad Takieddine on a news channel cannot be interpreted as an attempt to put pressure on the justice system. Nicolas Sarkozy is very determined to assert his rights, establish the truth and defend his honour.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter
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