The corruption pact behind the suitcases of Libyan cash sent to Paris
Mediapart is publishing four documents which prove that from 2005 to 2009 Nicolas Sarkozy and his aides tried to extricate Libyan spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi from his legal problems in France where he had been convicted for his involvement in the bombing of a passenger plane over Africa. The same Senussi is suspected of having sent five million euros in Libyan cash to Sarkozy and his chief of staff Claude Guéant before the 2007 presidential election - as revealed by the man who says he physically carried the money, arms dealer Ziad Takieddine. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
ThereThere are always two sides in any corruption pact; two sets of interests and two sets of expectations. In the Libyan election funding affair, the late regime leader Muammar Gaddafi insisted that it was Nicolas Sarkozy who had come to him to “ask” for “assistance” in the latter's 2007 presidential campaign in France. But for him to agree to provide this election funding, which is now the subject of a judicial investigation in France, it presupposes that Gaddafi received assurances of something in exchange from the Sarkozy camp once the election was over.
