Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been summoned for possible indictment in the investigation into the 2020 retraction of intermediary Ziad Takieddine, who accused her husband Nicolas Sarkozy of having financed his 2007 presidential campaign with Libyan funds, AFP learned on Saturday from a source close to the case.
According to this source, the model and singer faces prosecution for concealment of witness tampering, criminal conspiracy with a view to preparing trial fraud by an organized gang and with a view to the corruption of Lebanese judicial personnel.
Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy could emerge from this interrogation, the date of which has not been specified, indicted or under the more favorable status of assisted witness.
The judicial investigation opened in May 2021 is looking into the possible attempt by a dozen protagonists to deceive the French justice system in the Libyan case, the main part of which will be judged in early 2025.
The former president was indicted in October on suspicion of having approved these maneuvers. In April, his lawyers filed a request to have this measure annulled.
His wife has already been questioned twice by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Fiscal Offenses (OCLCIFF): first as a witness in June 2023, then as a suspect in early May.
Recently, according to elements of the investigation of which the AFP was aware and partly revealed by Le Parisien, it is a telephone of the ex-paparazzi priestess, “Mimi” Marchand (real name Michèle Marchand) , also implicated, which increased the charges against the 56-year-old artist.
The financial investigating judge in charge of the case believes he has found evidence of Ms Marchand’s use of a secret telephone line, which the person concerned disputes.
According to the judge, she sent messages via this mobile phone to the former presidential couple about the progress of the operation.
During her hearing at the beginning of May, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy indicated that she “felt responsible” for the accusation against her husband.
“I am the one who should be indicted,” she said, accusing Mimi Marchand of having “used my husband’s name and mine in this affair to gain influence with her accomplices.”
Mimi Marchand, she continues, “is clever, but not necessarily truthful (…) She is very manipulative.”
When asked, the singer’s lawyer, Me Paul Mallet, did not respond to AFP.
