It has remained one of the great secrets of the Libyan war of 2011. How exactly had one of the key figures in the toppled Gaddafi regime, Bashir Saleh, managed to defect and escape to France from the North African country in the midst of a bloody and chaotic revolution?
Mediapart can now reveal that Saleh, once Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's chief of staff and head of the the regime's multi-billion dollar Libyan African Portfolio (LAP), was extracted from war-torn Libya in November 2011 with the aid of President Nicolas Sarkozy and the well-connected French businessman Alexandre Djouhri.
The details are contained in reports from France's overseas intelligence agency, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). Two Paris-based investigating judges, René Cros and Emmanuelle Legrand, were able to get these reports declassified as part of their probe into the authenticity of a letter published by Mediapart on April 28th 2012, and dated December 2006, in which Saleh was informed of Libyan agreement to fund Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign.
The two DGSE notes – written on April 30th and November 27th, 2012 - which discuss this Libyan document cast no doubt at all on its authenticity. Meanwhile other DGSE notes reveal the background to how Saleh was able to escape Libya in 2011 despite being a senior member of the regime that was overthrown by an armed uprising. Mediapart has already revealed how Saleh later hurriedly left France in 2012 after the revelations about Sarkozy's Libyan funding.
One of the DGSE reports, dated August 25th, 2011, states how in the middle of the uprising Bashir Saleh asked the French ambassador in Tripoli to “get in touch with Eskander [editor's note, the name used in the reports for Alexandre] Djouhri, Nicolas Sarkozy and BS's [editor's note, Bashir Saleh] mutual friend, in order to ask him to telephone the French president to reassure him over his situation”. Alexandre Djouhri, who was close to Sarkozy’s long-serving chief of staff Claude Guéant, had since 2007 been the Sarkozy clan's main go-between with the Libyan authorities, a role he had taken over from arms dealer Ziad Takieddine.
The series of DGSE notes dates back to May 2011, two months after the United Nations had authorized the use of force by external powers in the Libyan conflict. In the first note, dated May 6th, and entitled “Potential and confirmed defections in Colonel Gaddafi's entourage”, the DGSE reports that “Bashir Saleh has, at the request of the Libyan Guide [editor's note, a reference to Muammar Gaddafi], taken action to contact the French authorities”. Two intermediaries are cited, one close to the French nuclear firm Areva, the other from a company called Communication et Systèmes (CS). The Senegalese president at the time, Abdoulaye Wade, had also “asked Bashir Saleh about his intentions, proposing that the Guide's chief of staff and his family go to Senegal”. According to the French intelligence report, Saleh had “excluded this option for the time being”.
In a fuller report, dated May 12th, 2011, the DGSE explained that Bashir Saleh “exercises significant influence on the internal and external policy of the regime” and “is currently activating his contacts among the heads of state in Sub-Saharan Africa to prompt a new initiative from the African Union”. The report continues: “In parallel with his functions in the LAP, he apparently played an important role in the awarding of the contract for Airbus civil aircraft with [Libyan airline] Afriqiyah Airways...he was also apparently involved in a meeting chaired by the Libyan prime minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, relating to the internal security market, in particular about the financing aspect.” The DGSE notes that Bashir Saleh's banking assets had been frozen by the European Union and that he remained “in the Guide's inner circle”.
Bashir Saleh then reappears on the radar of the intelligence services more than three months later. Following the offensive on Tripoli, which started on August 20th, and the taking of Gaddafi's headquarters on August 23rd, the DGSE announces it has made contact on August 25th with “the recently defected chief of staff”. The report notes that Bashir Saleh was also “the Guide's special envoy for the peace negotiations”.
The report is in effect a debriefing. “His different functions have led him to go regularly to Paris where he maintains he has met the highest authorities of state, including the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Guéant and [editor's note, the then foreign minister] Alain Juppé with whom he has very good relations. His last visit to Paris dates back nearly a month. In the context of peace negotiations, BS [editor's note, Bashir Saleh] met Dominique de Villepin [editor's note, a former French prime minister] 15 days ago at Djerba [editor's note, in Tunisia].”
The report also reveals “Bashir Saleh's demands”. It states: “BS requests that the CDM [editor's note, for 'chef de mission diplomatique', meaning the ambassador] reports to his authorities that he is well, that he is in good health and well-treated. He is cooperating fully with the rebellion and says he is ready to play a role in the context of an end to the crisis. He wants to be useful to the top French authorities and can get in touch with them via XXX [editor's note, this part is blanked out], a member of the French diplomatic mission from Benghazi, sent on a mission to Tripoli and who certainly has a secured connection with his administration. BS requests that the CDM gets in touch with Eskander Djouhri, mutual friend of Nicolas Sarkozy and BS, in order to ask him to telephone the French president to reassure him of his situation. Eskander can be reached at XXX [passage blanked].”
Enlargement : Illustration 2
The following day, August 26th, a new “intelligence note”, was sent by the agent in position in Tripoli. It announces that “Bashir Saleh, Muammar Gaddafi's chief of staff, is joining the opposition”. It continues: “Bashir Saleh, Muammar Gaddafi's chief of staff and the Guide's emissary in charge of negotiating an end to the crisis defected on August 22nd and now finds himself under the protection of an armed group from the insurrection close to Tripoli.” A note at the bottom of the page makes clear that he was being held by a group called the Martyr Muhammad al-Madani brigade and that he was being treated as an “important guest”. The DGSE note says that Saleh envisages using TV news channel Al Jazeera to call on loyalist forces to “cease combat”. It adds: “In exchange for his collaboration in the hunt for loyalist dignitaries he might receive clemency from the insurrection.”
Another note on August 31st sums up the situation of the former regime senior figure who was being held “in very good conditions at the Regata tourist centre, west of Tripoli”, and mentions the political contacts he had made. Bashir Saleh said he was “determined to put his plan for negotiations in operation” to “bring the civil war to an end”. The note reports: “Bashir yesterday (August 30th 2011) telephoned Claude Guéant, French interior minister. He also raised the fate of his family with the minister. BS says he also contacted Dominique de Villepin whom he was due to meet soon.”
“BS puts himself forward as a mediator capable of convincing his main contacts, in particular African ones,” adds the DGSE report, which then goes on to describe the former chief of staff's “demands”. “BS wants his family to be in a safe place, first of all in Tunisia then if possible in France. This essential protection is a precondition before any journey or involvement by BS in the process of Libyan national reconciliation,” says the report.
Saleh 'displayed his emotion as he thanked the French president on many occasions'
According to the same intelligence report, Gaddafi's former chief of staff also discloses “his wish to obtain asylum for his family in France”; proof that he was not completely sure that the new authorities would take on board his “rallying” to their cause. “The process of extracting the family is hampered by the absence of official documents (no passports),” the DGSE note adds.
On September 3rd, 2011, the DGSE provides a summary of a long “interview” with Bashir Saleh, part of which remains classified and blanked out in the version sent to the investigating judges. The former Gaddafi aide makes a lengthy plea over the political future of the head of the group that is holding him, Ibrahim al-Madani. Saleh announces that he is now the “special advisor and lobbyist” for this “young Zintan katiba chief [editor's note, Zintan is a town south-west of Tripoli and 'katiba' is a generic word for militia]”, whom he describes as “the true liberator of Tripoli” and who is going to “play a key role” in the future. He asks the French for “logistical support” for the young leader and for “the despatch of political and security advisors”.
“BS is keen for France to be involved. Declaring himself a Francophile and friend of Nicolas Sarkozy and of Claude Guéant; BS states that without this support for IM [editor's note, Ibrahim al-Madani] not only is the transition process going to be too long and thus very fragile, what is more France is going to lose influence and in fact all possibility of playing a key role in Libya,” states the report.
The former Gaddafi aide also notes in passing the financial role he had been able to play. “BS was keen to recall that he had been at the head of the Libya Africa Portfolio for Investment between 2006 and 2008 and that thanks to him this 5 billion dollar investment fund had enabled Airbus to sell 30 aircraft to the Libyan company Ifriqya [editor's note, Afriqiyah Airways] and that EADS [editor's note, now the Airbus Group] had been nominated to establish a continental platform in Libya dedicated to aircraft maintenance.”
Fearing for his safety, Saleh reiterates his demand for political asylum, “initially” just for his family. The DGSE note then reports: “As for what concerns him personally … he wants to maintain this role of advisor and help IM's political rise. Then, subsequently, when his activities are finished, he will probably consider asking for asylum for himself. As for a hypothetical future role in Libya, BS declares that he would only take one if President Sarkozy asked him.”
The note continues: “BS thus wants to evacuate his family as quickly as possible. He has made an appeal to his friend Djouhri Eskander, a French businessman resident in Switzerland who is supposed to be putting at his disposal a jet leaving from Djerba in Tunisia and heading for France. The problem that BS is encountering is that he and the members of his family no longer have any identity papers; all, absolutely all, were stolen during the systematic pillaging of his house and his secondary residences.”
On the same day Bashir Saleh officially asked for asylum for his family in the presence of Pierre Seillan, a French diplomat specialising in delicate missions, who was then in Tripoli. The request concerned his wife and five children. The methods for this evacuation had already been fixed. “This evacuation will take place under the escort of the 'Martyr Muhammad al-Madani' Zintan militia, a convoy of 4 cars will leave Tripoli, head for the Nafusa Mountains and go to Djerba,” notes the DGSE. However, if the French authorities gave the go ahead for the evacuation of the family “by Djouhri Eskander's jet from Tripoli's international airport” this would be “possible”.
On September 7th, the French authorities officially informed Gaddafi's former chief of staff of their “decision” to “prepare his family's evacuation”. The “solution via Tunisia with the support of Djouhri Eskander” had been abandoned. Bashir Saleh said that he had spoken to the businessman on the phone shortly before. “The latter had been in contact with their mutual friend in Paris” and some “instructions” were supposed to have been given for the evacuation of Saleh's eldest son.
On September 19th, the DGSE wrote a new report following a “one-to-one” interview with Saleh that lasted for around 15 minutes. “Having had news of his family,” and though he was “deprived of the telephone”, he declared himself “relieved to know that they have definitely arrived and are settled”. The report notes: “With his eyes welling and his voice breaking slightly, he displayed his emotion as he thanked on many occasions the French president and the many friends that he has in France, and declared with some emphasis that he will never forget this gesture and that he will remain loyal to France whatever happens now.” The French representative present, whose name is blanked out in the report, “let him pour out his emotions and renewed the instructions of the need for discretion, with secrecy guaranteeing his family's serenity”.
By September 26th, Bashir Saleh seemed ready to leave. In a report the DGSE described his preparations. “BS is in daily telephone contact with Skander [editor's note, Alexandre Djouhri], the intermediary who has enabled him to meet Dominique de Villepin on several occasions. BS has regular news of his family by telephone. His family is being accommodated by Skander. XXX [editor's note, the name has been blanked out] reminds him of the orders he has to abide by concerning discretion.”
The DGSE report continues: “BS wants to go quickly to France with his protégé so that French decision-makers get to know him and, as it were, to get him anointed. However, BS has a problem with his passport which disappeared when his home was invaded. He doesn't think that the Libyan authorities will provide him with a new one, but he hopes to find another of his passports. BS doesn't want a Schengen visa but a VTL [editor's note a 'limited territorial validity' visa] which is obtained more quickly. He says he will contact his friend Boris Boillon, CMD Tunis [editor's note, for chef de mission diplomatique or head of the diplomatic mission], and that it won't pose a problem. Confirms his interest in coming to France and only to France. BS also wants to obtain French nationality and a passport. He will submit an application in the coming months and hopes that the French president will be re-elected.”
However, Bashir Saleh remained on Libyan soil until November 2011. He managed to meet the then-chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, on November 12th. And Saleh indicated to French representatives that his departure to France “posed no problem for Libya's highest authority”. The former chief of staff thus confirmed his desire “to go to France as early as possible”. It was to occur four days later. On November 15th he set off for Dehiba, in south Tunisia, which is just four kilometres from the Libyan border. There, reports the DGSE, a “vehicle from the French Embassy in Tunisia was due to be waiting for them, according to Bashir Saleh who declared that he had contacted the ambassador Boris Boillon”.
Bashir Saleh's situation thus appeared to have been resolved and he was able to stay a few months in France. Until, that is, April 2012 when Mediapart published the Libyan document on the funding of Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign, prompting Saleh's hasty departure from Paris. As Mediapart has recounted, this departure was organised by Alexandre Djouhri, with the apparent support of Bernard Squarcini, the then head of France's domestic intelligence service, the DCRI. At the time Saleh was subject to an Interpol arrest warrant.
Meanwhile former ambassador Boris Boillon, who is now a private consultant, was arrested by French customs officers at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris on July 31st, 2013, as he was waiting to board a train for Brussels. He was carrying a bag containing 350,000 euros and 40,000 dollars in cash. An investigation is under way as to the origin of the money, which the former diplomat says came from consultancy services in Iraq and had been kept in his office and cellar.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter