A British woman has become the key witness in the ongoing judicial investigation into suspected illegal political funding in France from weapons sales abroad, and which is now engulfing the French presidency in a scandal that threatens Nicolas Sarkozy's future.
Nicola Johnson was divorced earlier this month from Paris-based arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, currently under investigation for his role as a principle intermediary in the suspected scam. Mediapart can reveal here extracts from her statement to French police investigators in which she details her former husband's extraordinary close relationships with senior French politicians, including the funding of lavish holidays.
She also told investigators how Takieddine, who Mediapart has already revealed pays no tax on his 40 million-euro wealth in France, where he is fiscally domiciled, apparently escaped a tax control last year after the intervention of a "higher authority". Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
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Earlier this month, Paris-based businessman and arms dealer Ziad Takieddine was formerly placed under investigation - mis en examen in French, and which is one step short of being charged - by Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke, leading an investigation into suspected illegal party funding via kickbacks paid during two major French weapons contracts signed with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Takieddine was placed under investigation for "aiding and abetting the misuse of company assets" and "receiving" the proceeds. Now the Franco-Lebanese weapons broker's former wife, Nicola Johnson, has become a crucial witness in a case that threatens the political future of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
She has given testimony about Takieddine's largesse with Sarkozy's long-serving inner circle of aides and allies, including ministers past and present, and notably the current leader of the president's ruling UMP party, Jean-François Copé. Excerpts from her statements, reproduced further below, also raise significant questions about alleged official protection afforded to her former husband that allowed him to escape paying any tax on his vast wealth in France, which includes luxury Paris apartments, a French Riviera holiday home and a yacht.
The enquiry by Judge Van Ruymbeke (1) has established that Takieddine was imposed as an intermediary in the weapons deals under investigation, on the orders of the government of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, a political mentor for Sarkozy who served as his budget minister. The contracts were for the supply of three Agosta-class submarines to Pakistan, and of three French La Fayette-class frigates to Saudi Arabia, a deal codenamed Sawari 2.
(For more detail on the background to the contracts, and what is thus far known to have led to the deaths of 11 French naval engineers in a bomb atack in 2002, at the heart of the scandal now known as the 'Karachi affair', see a Q&A guide here and a video presentation here).
Takieddine and his associates were promised the equivalent of 33 million euros in secret commissions for the Pakistan deal, and 213 million euros for the frigates sale to Saudi Arabia. Van Ruymbeke's investigation centres on evidence that some of the commissions paid in the deals were siphoned off back to France, via secret financial routes, to fund Balladur's presidential election campaign.
Nicolas Sarkozy, then Balladur's budget minister and who was also his campaign spokesman, authorized the financial arrangements for the payment of intermediaries, among whom the most important was Ziad Takieddine. But the implications of the evidence emerging from Van Ruymbeke's independent judicial investigation goes further than the two weapons deals which were concluded in 1994.
As Mediapart has revealed, Takieddine continued to play a central role in several weapons sales mounted between 2002 and 2009 by senior aides of Nicolas Sarkozy, before and after he became president (2) - (see also links to Mediapart's investigations at the end of this article). The aides included former interior minister and now presidential advisor Brice Hortefeux, a longstanding friend of the president, and current interior minister Claude Guéant, formerly the president's chief-of-staff and, during Sarkozy's earlier ministerial career, his principle private secretary.
Mediapart's investigations into Takieddine's activities have revealed his very close personal and professional ties with Sarkozy's inner circle, and which are confirmed by Nicola Johnson's statements.
Along with Takieddine, two of the president's close entourage, Nicolas Bazire and Thierry Gaubert, were also this month placed under investigation for embezzlement linked to the suspected the funding scam.
Bazire, 54, Managing Director and Head of Development and Acquisitions of French luxury goods group LVMH, and who was Sarkozy's best man at his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008, served as Balladur's principle private secretary and campaign director. He was brought into police custody for questioning on September 21st, when his home and business offices were also searched by police from the National Financial Investigation Division, (DNIF).
Thierry Gaubert, 60, a former communications director for Sarkozy when he was mayor of the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, and who was later an advisor to Sarkozy when he was budget minister, has remained close to the French president for more than 20 years. Sarkozy, when mayor of Neuilly, celebrated Gaubert's marriage to Princess Hélène of Yugoslavia in 1988 (photo). The couple are now estranged, and she has given several statements to Judge Van Ruymbeke's investigation, in August and again this month, about her husband's alleged role in the suspected funding scam.
Her testimony is echoed by that of Johnson, 50, whose divorce from Takieddine, whom she married in 1985, was finally pronounced on September 15th.
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1: Renaud Van Ruymbeke, 59, is specialised in financial crime and has led several, high-profile investigations into political corruption involving figures and parties from both the Left and Right. He also led the successful second investigation into the 1996 rape and murder in Brittany of 13 year-old British girl Caroline Dickinson and was latterly one of two magistrates in charge of the pre-trial investigations into Société Générale 'rogue' trader Jérôme Kerviel.
2: Following Edouard Balladur's 1995 election defeat, Nicolas Sarkozy returned to government seven years later when he was appointed as interior minister, under then-President Jacques Chirac, from May 7th 2002 until March 30th 2004. He became finance minister from March 31st 2004 until November 29th 2004, again under President Chirac. He was re-appointed interior minister, still under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, from June 2nd 2005, until March 26th 2007. Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France in 2007 and took up office on May 16th 2007.
'Flattered to rub shoulders with political figures'
The divorce procedure involved an acrimonious financial dispute between the couple, centred on her claim for 25 million euros of what she estimates to be Takieddine's worldwide fortune of more than 100 million euros. Pronouncing the divorce, a Paris appeals court awarded her 3 million euros.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
During questioning by police acting on Judge Van Ruymbeke's instructions, Gaubert told them that Ziad Takieddine "was flattered to rub shoulders with political and media figures who I introduced him to, notably Messrs [Brice] Hortefeux and [Jean-François] Copé, between 2002 and 2004".
Questioned by DNIF police officers on August 30th, two weeks before her divorce was pronounced, Johnson confirmed Gaubert's claim, telling them: "Knowing Thierry Gaubert allowed Ziad to meet people close to political power." She was notably asked to say what she knew about holidays offered and paid to political figures by Takieddine.
She began by referring to the president's close friend and current advisor Brice Hortefeux, declaring: "Regarding Hortefeux, we never went on holiday with him but he came to our place in Paris, as well as in Antibes, and on the boat La Diva."
Enlargement : Illustration 3
She then spoke of her former husband's close links with Jean-François Copé, now head (secretary-general) of President Sarkozy's ruling UMP party. "With Jean-François Copé, it is a bit different because Ziad saw more of Jean-François and his wife," Johnson told police. "We went to London together to celebrate one of my birthdays eight years ago. I think Ziad paid for the trip, the hotel and the food for Jean-François, his wife and two children. They came to Lebanon, where they stayed at our home in Beirut."
'Ziad covered the Copé family's travelling expenses'
She continued: "I discovered, in relation to documents I found at home, that Ziad had covered the Copé family's travelling expenses in 2003, I think. The Copé family came to Antibes several times. They went with us to Venice about six or seven years ago, I think Ziad also paid the Copé family's travel expenses to Venice. Copé was a minister or government spokesman at that time."
Copé was government spokesman from 2002 to 2007, when he also served, between 2004 and 2007, as budget minister. Prior to 2004, he was briefly a junior minister with the interior ministry in 2004, and was Secretary of State for relations with parliament from 2002 to 2004.
Enlargement : Illustration 4
Amongst evidence in Judge Van Ruymbeke's possession are papers from Ziad Takieddine's financial accounts which prove he paid for several of the trips cited by Johnson.
Among other politicians Johnson said were regular acquaintances of her former husband were Edouard Balladur's defence minister, François Léotard, and Léotard's special advisor, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who later became Minister of Culture, between 2004 and 2007.
Enlargement : Illustration 5
"I understood that Renaud was very involved in the arms contracts, Sawari 2 in particular," said Johnson. The Sawari 2 contract, at the core of Judge Van Ruymbeke's investigation along with the sale of three submarines to Pakistan, was the codename for the sale of three La Fayette-class frigates to Saudi Arabia organised by the Balladur government at the end of 1994.
"Renaud grew quite close to Ziad," Johnson told police. "They saw each other often. They became friends. We went to Corsica, on holiday, to Renaud's place. At the time, Ziad told me that he was indeed paid commissions on State-to-State contracts, and that it was quite legal. But, I don't know if he paid commissions [Editor's note: kickbacks] to politicians. In any case, if that were the case he wouldn't have told me. Those commissions explain our lifestyle which improved as soon as we arrived in Paris. From that time on we began buying properties and cars, and taking private planes."
'Higher authority' blocked tax inspectors
Johnson said that during the period 1993-94, Ziad Takieddine had "all the same confided that he worked with all those people [Editor's note: Bazire, Gaubert, Donnedieu de Vabres, Léotard and Balladur] on an arms contract in Saudi Arabia."
Johnson also confirmed testimony given earlier by Thierry Gaubert's estranged wife, Princess Hélène of Yugoslavia, who told DNIF police officers how, during the period 1994-1995, Gaubert accompanied Takieddine on trips to a Swiss bank to withdraw large sums of cash with which the two men returned to France. The princess said the money, transported in large suitcases, was then handed over to Balladur's presidential campaign director Nicolas Bazire in person in Paris. She reiterated her statement during further questioning this month.
"It was her husband who revealed these precise facts," Johnson told police in her August 30th statement. "According to Hélène, that money was earmarked for the politicians. But she didn't tell me to whom [it was]. I know they went to Switzerland by plane, but I don't know if it was by private jet or regular airline. I cannot tell you if that money came from arms contracts. Hélène told me that they went to Switzerland together several times in 1995."
Concerning Takieddine's relationship with Nicolas Bazire, Johnson said: "He got to know Nicolas Bazire through Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in 1993, 1994. I knew at the time that Bazire was with Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's staff. He came to dinner two or three times when we were living in the rue Raymond Poincaré [in Paris]. I also met him at Monsieur Gaubert's house in Deauville. His relations with Ziad were more professional."
As previously revealed by Mediapart, despite having assets estimated at some 100 million euros worldwide, 40 million euros of which are based in France where he has elected fiscal domiciliation, Takieddine paid no tax in the country for more than ten years. Several investigations launched by tax inspectors were halted in 2005, when Jean-François Copé was budget minister.
According to his ex-wife, Takieddine appears to have also benefitted last year from an extraordinary official intervention to prevent another investigation into his tax status. "I learnt that my husband was the subject of a tax control by the DNVSF [Direction Nationale de Vérification des Situations Fiscales] and that this would have been opened in September 2010 and suspended in December 2010 because a higher authority had wished so," said Johnson. She did not clarify who that "higher authority" might have been.
Meanwhile, Mediapart has learnt that a witness to Van Ruymbeke's investigation has testified that Nicolas Sarkozy, during the 1990s and before he became president in 2007, enjoyed a trip to Venice paid from funds belonging to Thierry Gaubert. The alleged excursion involved a business-class flight, and a stay at the Cipriani Hotel.
In Gaubert's statements to police, he has declared that he "never received one cent from Monsieur Takieddine in relation to his functions as an intermediary in the arms contracts".
Contacted by Mediapart about the alleged trip, Thierry Gaubert said: "I don't know, I don't believe that." Contacted also by Mediapart, the French presidential office did not reply to our requests for a response to the claim.
Sarkozy, Balladur, Bazire, Gaubert and Takieddine have all denied involvement in illegal political funding.
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For more on this story and Mediapart's exclusive investigations into the political scandal surrounding the activities of arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, click on the links below:
Net closes in on French presidency after funding 'scam' arrests
Arms dealer probe brings illegal funding scandal closer to Sarkozy
The secret financier who brings danger to the Sarkozy clan
Sarkozy, the arms dealer, and a secret 350 million-euro commission
The well-connected arms dealer and his tax returns
How Sarkozy aides saved arms dealer from paradise island 'death blow'
Exclusive: how Sarkozy's team sought grace for Gaddafi's murderous henchman
The arms dealer and his Paris party for the glitterati
Exlusive: how President Sarkozy's team dealt with Gaddafi
When Total paid the bill for the Elysée's secret emissary
How French intelligence shields the sarkozy clan's unofficial emissary
Divorce court freezes arms broker's assets
The French-built stealth offroader that may be hiding Gaddafi
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English version: Krystyna Horko and Graham Tearse
(Editing by Graham Tearse)