The secret financier who brings danger to the Sarkozy clan

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Ziad Takieddine is best known to the public in connection with the ongoing judicial investigations into suspected illegal kickbacks from ‘commissions' paid during the controversial sale of submarines by France to Pakistan during the 1990s. But Mediapart can now exclusively reveal the businessman and arms broker's privileged relations at the very heart of President Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske investigate a man who represents a political time bomb for the French presidency.

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In this, the first of a series of reports about Ziad Takieddine, Mediapart exclusively reveals photos testifying to the hitherto undisclosed and even secret links between the 61 year-old businessman and the inner circle surrounding French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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