Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi, died Tuesday aged 75, two days before the verdict in the ex-head of state's trial, his lawyer said, reports Yahoo! News.
Takieddine died in the morning in the Lebanese capital Beirut, his French lawyer Elise Arfi told AFP.
Takieddine, a key figure in the case, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($6 million) in cash from Kadhafi to Sarkozy and the former president's chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.
But in 2020, Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, prompting accusations that Sarkozy and close allies paid the witness to change his mind, something they have always denied.
Both Sarkozy and his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, have been charged* on suspicion of putting pressure on a witness over these allegations in what is now a new legal case.
In the Libya investigation, prosecutors argued that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund Sarkozy's victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012 and has been convicted twice in other cases, denies the charges.
Read more of this report from AFP published by Yahoo! News.
* Editor's note: Under a change to the French legal system introduced in 1993, a magistrate can decide if a suspect should be 'placed under investigation' (mis en examen), which is a status one step short of being charged (inculpé), if there is 'serious or concordant' evidence that they committed a crime. Some English-language media describe this status, peculiar to French criminal law, as that of being charged. In fact, it is only at the end of an investigation that a decision can be made to bring charges, in which case the accused is automatically sent for trial.