In a much-awaited decision, the Bordeaux court of appeal has ruled that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy should remain under investigation for exploiting L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt’s dementia to obtain funds for his 2007 election campaign. The court threw out Sarkozy’s appeal along with several others lodged by fellow suspects cited in the case, and which included a demand that the investigating magistrates should be removed from the case for reason of their alleged impartiality. The ruling announced on Tuesday means Sarkozy could now face trial on the charge of ‘abuse of weakness’, about which a decision is expected within weeks. Michel Deléan reports.
The Bettencourt affair has reached an unprecedented scope among the many scandals that have rocked France in recent decades. As a judicial ruling ordering the censorship of Mediapart’s reporting of the scandal kicks in this Monday evening, Michel Deléan dresses a summary of the judicial investigations into the affair which, over the past three years, have exposed a bed of political corruption and influence peddling, a record back payment in taxes on assets secretly stashed abroad, not to mention the outrageous antics of a high-society cabal and the sordid exploitation of one of Europe’s wealthiest individuals.
After his accounts were rejected by France's top constitutional court, the former president resigned from that body, to enable him to 'speak freely' on the issue. He and his supporters claim the ruling - the first of its kind - is 'unfair'. Meanwhile, as Mathilde Mathieu reports, the main opposition party the UMP now has to find 11 million euros to avoid potential financial ruin.
As widely expected, the prosecutor in Bordeaux says that 'in the absence of evidence' there should be no further action taken against the former president over claims that he took advantage of the billionaire’s mental frailty to obtain funds for his 2007 election campaign. But, as Michel Deléan reports, the three examining magistrates in charge of this high-profile and controversial case could still decide to send Nicolas Sarkozy to stand trial.
Mohammed Ismail (pictured), a former aide to Saïf al-Islam, the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has confirmed claims that Gaddafi funded the 2007 election campaign of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Mediapart can reveal. “Part of the funds went through North Africa Commercial Bank in Beirut, and from there to a bank account in Germany affiliated with Ziad,” Ismail told Mediapart, referring to Ziad Takieddine, a Paris-based businessman and arms dealer who worked as a key advisor to Sarkozy’s aides in their dealings with the former Libyan regime. “Other parts were funnelled through bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland,” he added. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
A senior aide to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has revealed that Gaddafi personally told him that his regime illegally funded Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign to the tune of 20 million dollars. Moftah Missouri, who was Colonel Gaddafi’s personal interpreter, who was given the rank of ambassador and who also served as a minister in the regime, made the disclosure in an interview with French state television channel France 2, to be broadcast Thursday evening. During the interview, also confirms the veracity of a document published by Mediapart in April 2012 in which Gaddafi's funding of Sarkozy’s campaign is detailed. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Judge Jean-Michel Gentil has been accused of a 'major conflict of interest' and lack of impartiality after it emerged that one of the medical experts he used in the Bettencourt investigation is a friend of his. The disclosure, which has been given massive media coverage, follows the anonymous death threats and vitriolic attacks from right-wing politicians that greeted his decision to put former president Nicolas Sarkozy under formal investigation for allegedly exploiting the mental frailty of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt. But, as Mediapart's legal affairs expert Michel Deléan explains, this is simply the latest in a catalogue of attacks on judges who dare to turn the spotlight on powerful political and business interests.
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