Although the date is not yet known, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has received a summons from the courts. The wife of the former president faces prosecution for receiving stolen goods, conspiracy to swindle a witness, and corruption of Lebanese judicial personnel.
The judicial investigation, opened in 2021, is looking into a possible attempt by a dozen protagonists to deceive French justice in the Libyan case. Nicolas Sarkozy, the singer’s husband, is suspected of having participated in this operation and was indicted last October.
After Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy soon to be indicted?
The main part of the Libyan case will be judged at the start of 2025. Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted in October. The ex-president is suspected of having participated in an operation whose objective was to make the Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who had testified against him, retract his testimony. In April, the Republican’s lawyers filed a motion to overturn the measure and recently requested that the investigation be dismissed.
Investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses have already heard Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, his wife, twice. The singer was heard as a witness in June 2023, then as a suspect in early May.
crédit photo : Tom Nicholson/Shutterstock Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is expected to be summoned to court soon. The wife of the former President of the Republic is also likely to be indicted.
What are the charges against Carla Bruni-Sarkozy?
According to elements of the investigation revealed in part by Le Parisien, a telephone of the paparazzi “Mimi” Marchand who has increased the charges against Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The investigating judge in charge of the case believes he has found the evidence of the use of a occult telephone line by Michèle Marchand. The latter disputes the facts.
But in December 2019, Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife asked his IT specialist “a new line completely disconnected from the rest“. The judge thinks that Mimi Marchand would then have written to the former presidential couple via this cell phone. One of the messages would have proven that the 56-year-old artist was warned of the paparazzi’s trip to Beirut, mid-October 2020, to the interview in which Ziad Takieddine retracts The singer initially assured that she was not aware of this interview. The OCLCIFF investigator then asked the former First Lady in early May: “Why did you lie?“. “Even though I knew she was going (to Lebanon), I didn’t know why” she replied.
Mimi Marchand “very manipulative” according to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
Asked about the thesis of the telephone belonging to her, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy then assured that it was not his number. On this hidden line, the judge found a message two messages in June 2021, two weeks before the first wave of arrests in the case. Mimi Marchand indicates that a “friend came home last night” and “everything is fine“. Sarkozy’s wife then declared that she did not “don’t see at all what (Mimi Marchand) can talk about“. The investigation highlights that this message was sent a few hours after the trip to Germany by two protagonists in the case. The latter could have handed over fonds used to corrupt Lebanese magistrates. The objective would have been to bring out Hannibal Gaddafi so that the latter could help exonerate Nicolas Sarkozy.
“Oh la la“, then launched Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. “I don’t know. Cash… Hannibal Gaddafi… We are in a sphere where I don’t know what to tell you” she added. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy told investigators that she was “stupidly naive” and this “feel responsible for the indictment” from her husband. “It’s me who should bee”. The wife of the former head of state introduces herself as “only contact” of her husband with Mimi Marchand. According to the former model, the latter “used my husband’s name and mine […] to give yourself weight with your friends“. Selon Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Mimi Marchand “eis clever, but not necessarily in the truth […] She is very manipulative“The date of the singer’s summons has not been disclosed.
