The Sarkozy-Gaddafi funding affair began with investigations by Mediapart and ended in a judicial investigation and trial. On this page is a selection of 20 stories charting the progression of Mediapart’s investigations and those of the judges who finally sent former French president Nicolas Sarkozy for trial. The selection, intended to offer readers an understanding of this highly complex case, covers ten years, but it’s far from exhaustive. Many more reports were published over that period and further back, and they can can be found in English only by typing “Gaddafi” and “Sarkozy” into the search engine on Mediapart’s English-language pages.
A key figure in the Karachi and Sarkozy-Gaddafi scandals, the middleman Ziad Takieddine died on Tuesday, September 23rd, at a hospital in Beirut. His death in the Lebanese capital came just two days before a court in Paris delivers its long-awaited verdict in the trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and other defendants – including Takieddine himself - over the Libyan-French presidential election funding affair. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
The trial of Nicolas Sarkozy and 11 others on corruption charges relating to the alleged funding of the former French president’s 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is now entering its final stages after prosecutors on Thursday called for Sarkozy to be handed a seven-year jail sentence and a 300,000-euro fine. Mediapart looks back at the significant moments of the trial so far, before the court hears the arguments for the defence of Sarkozy and his co-accused, who include three former ministers. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Nicolas Sarkozy and some of his former ministers go on trial this Monday over claims that the former French president's successful 2007 election campaign was funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In this, as in other criminal cases in which the former head of state has been implicated, his approach has been to disclaim any personal knowledge of events, even to the point of throwing his closest associates under the bus. In the current case the ex-head of state has had harsh words for his most loyal lieutenants, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant. “I had no way of knowing what the reality of their lives was,” he told judges investigating the affair. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and three of his ex-ministers will stand trial in Paris on January 6th on corruption charges related to the alleged illegal funding of his 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Part of the prosecution case is the alleged offer by Sarkozy’s entourage to overturn, in return for the funding, an international arrest warrant issued by France against Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, who was found guilty in absentia of masterminding the mid-air bombing of a French airliner in which 170 people died. In this interview with Mediapart, the sister of one of the victims, and the daughter of another, recount their long quest for justice, and explain why they hope the trial will finally present the truth about the suspected ugly dealings over Senussi.
Mediapart has obtained the rushes, hitherto unseen in public, of a video interview with Ziad Takieddine, a key witness in the probe into the alleged Libyan funding of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign, in which the Franco-Lebanese business intermediary retracted his earlier testimony detailing how Sarkozy received the cash sums from Tripoli. The video was broadcast as an edited 32-second “exclusive” in November 2020 by French rolling news channel BFMTV, before Takieddine, who had been promised payment, finally disowned his retraction and an investigation into “witness tampering” was launched. The unedited video rushes, published in this report, reveal the extent of the manipulation by BFMTV in operation dubbed “Save Sarko”. Fabrice Arfi, Karl Laske and Antton Rouget report.
After ten years of investigation, judges have decided that there is sufficient evidence to send former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to stand trial in the affair concerning the alleged illegal Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign. The investigating judges are also sending three of the ex-president's ministers for trial in the same affair: Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux and Éric Woerth. As Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report, this is an unprecedented situation in French political and legal history.
The French judicial investigation into the suspected illegal financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has found new evidence pointing to the organisation of the alleged funding on computer files belonging to Thierry Gaubert, a close friend and political ally of the former French president. In this second of a two-part report on the discovery, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske detail more about the findings and their implications.
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.
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Former French interior minister Claude Guéant, who served for years as chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy before and after he became president, received 500,000 euros paid through a complex money trail that led back to a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a Paris appeal court has confirmed. The payment was made when Guéant, dubbed “the cardinal” because of his power and influence as Sarkozy’s right-hand man, was secretary general of the Élysée Palace. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Two of former president Nicolas Sarkozy's closest allies, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, have recently been placed under formal investigation for “criminal conspiracy” over claims that the ex-head of state's 2007 election was part-funded by the Libyan regime. Mediapart can now reveal that during questioning by judges both men admitted to lapses in judgement in meeting a spy chief from Muammar Gaddafi's regime who was wanted by the French justice system after being convicted of a terrorist attack. Yet they deny there was any deal for the Libyans to help fund the election campaign. Both men also loyally continue to protect their former boss, who himself faces claims of criminal conspiracy and corruption in the case. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
The decision by judges to place the former president under formal investigation – one step short of charges being brought – relates to claims that his 2007 presidential campaign was financed in part by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In 2018 Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation in relation to the same inquiry for “illicit funding of an electoral campaign”, “receiving and embezzling public funds” and “passive corruption”. This new move by investigating judges means that for the first time a former head of state in France formally faces claims of “criminal conspiracy”. The ex-president denies any wrongdoing. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the latest developments in the long-running investigation.
As part of their investigation into the suspected funding by the Gaddafi regime in Libya of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign, two French judges travelled to Tripoli earlier this month when they questioned, for the first time face-to-face, Gaddafi’s former spy chief, and brother-in-law, Mohamed Abdulla Senussi. Mediapart has gained access to extracts from the statements provided by Senussi, who detailed how he oversaw the payment of 7 million euros for Sarkozy’s campaign, as ordered by Gaddafi. He also confirmed that, as part of the deal, the former French president’s personal lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog was involved in moves to overturn an international arrest warrant issued against Senussi after his conviction in absentia by a Paris court for his part in the blowing up of a French airliner in 1989.
France's highest appeal court, the Cour de Cassation, has rejected an appeal by former president Nicolas Sarkozy in a case against Mediapart relating to the authenticity of a key document showing he was promised Libyan funding for his 2007 election campaign. The judgement, published on Wednesday January 30th, means that the former president can no longer evade the election funding scandal revealed by this site, says Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel.
In August this year, Saïf al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, sent a lengthy written statement to French magistrates investigating evidence that France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy secretly received millions of euros from the dictator’s regime to finance his 2007 election campaign. Mediapart has gained access to the statement in full, and reveals here the most notable extracts, in which he corroborates the accounts of the illegal funding, details how it was organised, and relates how Sarkozy and his close entourage sought, as a return favour, to overturn a life sentence handed by a Paris court to Gaddafi’s intelligence chief in absentia for his role in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner which killed 170 passengers and crew. Karl Laske and Fabrice Arfi report.
Investigators probing claims that the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi funded Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign have unearthed a key piece of evidence in the archives of the Élysée. It shows that on May 16th, 2009, the middleman Ziad Takieddine visited the Élysée to meet Sarkozy's right-hand man Claude Guéant. The object was to “set aside the arrest warrant” targeting Colonel Gaddafi's brother-in-law and security chief Abdullah Senussi, who had been convicted in absentia for his part in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airline DC10 passenger plane over Niger, in which 170 people lost their lives. There is growing suspicion that an agreement to resolve Senussi's situation was a key component of the Libyan funding corruption plot. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske.
According to documents gathered by an elected official in Tripoli, in 2005 Nicolas Sarkozy's close friend and personal lawyer Thierry Herzog offered to get an arrest warrant and conviction against a senior Libyan official – who was blamed for a terrorist attack - quashed. The man in question, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law and security chief Abdullah Senussi, had been given a life prison sentence in his absence for masterminding the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airline DC10 passenger plane over Niger, in which 170 people lost their lives. The documents, seen by Mediapart, also show that Herzog was taken to Tripoli to discuss the affair by Francis Szpiner, the lawyer for the victims of the attack, though the latter has denied making the trip. The revelations point to a potential quid pro quo to explain why the Libyan regime would have been willing to help fund Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign, claims over which the former president is being investigated. Karl Laske and Fabrice Arfi report.
