A transcription of a conversation between the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and Nicolas Sarkozy, the first held by the two men following Sarkozy’s election as president in May 2007, reveals that, contrary to recent denials by the outgoing French head of state, Tripoli was offered French cooperation to develop a nuclear power programme, along with sales of weapons and security systems. The document, exclusively revealed here by Mediapart, also contains an exchange between the two leaders to decide with which Libyan official Sarkozy could discuss what he described as “delicate questions”. Gaddafi confirmed Sarkozy’s suggestion that this should be Bashir Saleh, head of the Libyan African Portfolio sovereign wealth investment fund who is named in a separate document published by Mediapart as the paymaster for the secret Libyan funding of Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Former Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi has confirmed that the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi secretly provided 50 million euros for Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. “We took part in Mr Sarkozy’s success and in the financing of his 2007 presidential campaign,” Mahmoudi said in an interview with Mediapart, conducted through his lawyer. "The figure of 50 million euros is correct.” Mahmoudi’s confirmation follows the publication by Mediapart of a December 2006 document, signed by the then head of Libya's foreign intelligence agency, Moussa Koussa, detailing how the Gaddafi regime agreed to “support the electoral campaign” of Sarkozy for the “sum of fifty million euros”, while the secret payments were to pass via the Libyan African Portfolio, a sovereign wealth investment fund. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
President Nicolas Sarkozy is under increasing pressure to explain how he financed his purchase of a luxurious apartment on an islet on the River Seine after information obtained by Mediapart now irrefutably confirms he did not, contrary to his claims, receive a loan worth 475,000 euros for the acquisition from the French parliament’s financial services. The revelation, provided by the French parliament’s financial and administrative commission, raises several crucial questions that the French president must now answer: why has he wrongly maintained since 2007 that he received 475,000 euros in a loan from the National Assembly? How did he raise the 282,000 euros unaccounted for in the acts of the property purchase, and from whom? Or did the property development company which sold him the apartment, and which benefitted from lucrative deals with the local town hall of which Sarkozy was then mayor and MP, offer the sum? Mathilde Mathieu and Michaël Hajdenberg report.
According to his own official declaration, President Nicolas Sarkozy has a personal wealth of 2.7 million euros. But mystery surrounds the financing of a property acquisition upon which a large part of the president’s private fortune is founded. Sarkozy has claimed that the purchase in 1997 of a luxurious apartment, which he sold in 2006 for 1,933,000 euros, was made possible thanks to a loan, when he was an MP, of some 457,000 euros from a financial service run by the French parliament. However, Mediapart can reveal that the loan is not mentioned, as it should be, in the sale agreement, published here. Furthermore, MPs were not entitled to a loan of more than 196,000 euros at the time of the purchase. Mathilde Mathieu and Michaël Hajdenberg report.
A major criminal investigation into the affairs of L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, and notably the suspected illegal funding of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign, has established that at least 800,000 euros were withdrawn from her secret Swiss bank accounts when Sarkozy was running for the presidency. Last week Bettencourt’s long-serving wealth manager, Patrice de Maistre, was imprisoned after being placed under formal investigation for financial corruption and for abusing the mental frailty of the L’Oréal heiress, now aged 89. The move followed the placing under investigation, in February, of Eric Woerth, former budget minister and Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign treasurer, in connection with the suspected scam. Fabrice Arfi reports.
A Paris judge investigating the suspected illegal financing of former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur’s presidential election campaign has uncovered new and compelling evidence that he received a significant sum of cash siphoned off from a weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, Mediapart can reveal. The discovery, a major development in what has become known as 'the Karachi Affair', centres on cash withdrawn from a Swiss bank account belonging to a member of Kuwait’s ruling Al-Sabah family, Sheik Ibrahim Al-Duaij Al-Sabah. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
After providing Mediapart with further information concerning allegations that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign was partly funded by former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the man at the centre of the controversy has now suddenly denounced a “crude manipulation” of his secret report detailing the alleged scam. Jean-Charles Brisard, a French expert on terrorism and terrorist financing, had earlier told Mediapart how Brice Hortefeux, (pictured with arms dealer Ziad Takieddine) a longstanding close friend and political aide of the French president and who is now vice-president of France’s ruling UMP party, was the “front” in a financial network set up for the secret funding of Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign by the Gaddafi regime. The Swiss-based consultant said he had a file containing “precise amounts, names, countries and dates.” Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
In the unfolding scandal of how Swedish furniture retail giant Ikea spied on its staff and customers in France, Mediapart has now obtained new evidence of how the chain engaged in illegally obtaining personal information about customers who lodged minor complaints with its stores over faulty goods - one involving a 200-euro cupboard - or delayed deliveries of their purchases. The cases again include the accessing of personal data from national French police files, and which could only be obtained by corrupting law enforcement officials. Mathilde Mathieu and Michaël Hajdenberg report.
According to information contained in a confidential report prepared by a recognised French expert on terrorism and terrorist financing, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign received up to 50 million euros in secret funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The document, to which Mediapart has gained exclusive access and details of which are published here, suggests the money transited by a covert financial network, via Panama and a Swiss bank account, allegedly organized by Paris-based arms dealer Ziad Takieddine.
In a significant development of the spying scandal engulfing Swedish furniture retail giant Ikea, Mediapart has exclusively obtained evidence that the managing director of Ikea France personally took part in an underhand espionage operation that illegally trawled for information into the personal life of one of the company’s senior staff. Documents accessed by Mediapart and published here reveal how Jean-Louis Baillot, head of the company’s French operations from 1996 to 2009, and who is now Ikea’s director for international commercial operations, was aware, approved of and encouraged the surveillance methods used by Ikea France security chief Jean-François Paris to hound and bait the company’s deputy director of communications and interior store planning, Virginie Paulin. Fabrice Arfi, Michaël Hajdenberg and Mathilde Mathieu report.
