Bashir Saleh, the former chief of staff to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has given a statement to the public prosecution services of Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Unity saying that he was informed how Nicolas Sarkozy directly asked Gaddafi for “help” with his 2007 presidential election campaign. The prosecutors have also obtained a detailed statement from Gaddafi’s personal secretary, Ahmed Ramadan, on precisely how the regime allegedly financed Sarkozy’s bid. In this second part of a series of three reports, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the latest developments in the French judicial investigation into the suspected illegal funding.
Cécilia Attias, the former wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, was interviewed in June as a witness by police acting under the authority of a judicial investigation into the suspected illegal funding of her then husband’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. During the four-hours of questioning, she was notably unflattering about several of the former president’s close entourage, and described evidence from the probe that was presented to her as, variously, “staggering”, “surreal” and “ugly”. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Forced labour, working without pay, excessive working hours in sweltering heat ... despite several reforms brought in by the emirate's authorities under pressure from human rights groups, the migrant labourers working flat-out to ensure the gas-rich state of Qatar is ready to host November's World Cup finals are still enduring appalling conditions. Rachida El Azzouzi reports from Doha on the plight of the workers just two months before the tournament kicks off.
Prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation after Mediapart revealed claims that the mayor of Saint-Étienne in south-east France, Gaël Perdriau, blackmailed his deputy mayor Gilles Artigues using a videotape of the latter with a male escort in an hotel room. The apparent aim of the blackmail was to ensure that Perdriau, who is from the right-wing Les Républicains (LR), maintained political control over his deputy Gilles Artigues, a devout Catholic and former Member of Parliament from the centre-right UDI party. After the initial revelations Mediapart then published extracts from recordings which revealed both Gaël Perdriau and his chief of staff threatening the deputy mayor over the sex tape. Both men, along with three others, have now been questioned in custody by detectives. Antton Rouget reports on an affair that has provoked widespread condemnation across the political spectrum.
French judges are leading an investigation into claims of corruption surrounding the 7.8-billion-euro sale to India in 2016 of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter aircraft. But four months after searching the headquarters of the French defence and aviation group, investigators were refused access by France's Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to classified documents concerning the contract negotiations. Yann Philippin reports.
A Paris-based judicial investigation into alleged “complicity in genocide” by Paul Barril, a former commander of the elite GIGN gendarmerie intervention squad, is now seeking access to the classified archives of a military chief of staff to late French president François Mitterrand. In May 1994, Barril signed a 3.1-million-dollar weapons deal with Rwanda’s extremist Hutu regime during its slaughter of up to a million of the country’s Tutsi population. The investigation is seeking to establish whether Barril was furthering his own interests or, unofficially, those of France. Fabrice Arfi reports.
On July 14th 2016, in the French Riviera city of Nice, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel ran a heavy truck into and over crowds celebrating Bastille Day, taking the lives of 86 people and injuring hundreds of others, before he was shot dead by police. The 31-year-old Tunisian had a history of mental problems and violence, raising the question of whether his act was solely that of a deranged individual. As the trial begins in Paris of eight people accused of helping him prepare the attack, Matthieu Suc details how the judicial investigation established beyond doubt that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's hideous crime was that of a terrorist, long drawn to jihadism.
In a legal battle that began in July, France’s Council of State is to rule early next week on the legality of interior minister Gérald Darmanin’s order for the expulsion to Morocco of imam Hassan Iquioussen, accused of promoting anti-Semitism and opposition to gender equality, and acting as an apologist for terrorism. Mediapart can reveal that the high-profile, hardline interior minister in fact once enjoyed cordial relations with the imam when he sought to woo Muslim voters while campaigning for election as mayor of the town of Tourcoing, and when Iquioussen’s anti-Semitic diatribes were already known. Lou Syrah reports.
France-based journalist Atanas Chobanov has been described as a 'bête noire' of Bulgaria’s oligarchs over his dogged investigations into high-level corruption in the Balkan country. French economic intelligence and cybersecurity firm Avisa Partners, whose clients include major corporations and dictatorial regimes and which is accused of manipulating online information, has confirmed to Mediapart it was commissioned by an agency it did not name to compile a report on the Bulgarian journalist. The firm insisted it later abandoned its enquiries and kept its “internal analysis report” in-house. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.
Mediapart has already revealed how a French firm that works for foreign directorships and the bosses of some of the biggest business groups in France, including billionaire Bernard Arnault, has been accused of manipulating information through various blogs, including on our own site. Today that same company, Avisa Partners, is suspected of having modified pages on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on behalf of its powerful clients. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.
