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, we learned this Saturday, June 29, 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. The 56-year-old artist 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. An operation that had been dubbed “Save Sarko”, the aim of which was to obtain a change of version from Ziad Takieddine in 2020, which had exonerated the head of state.
The ex-president was indicted in October, suspected of having approved these maneuvers. In April, his lawyers filed a motion to overturn this measure and, recently, a request to disorient the investigation.
Hidden telephone line
The wife of the former head of state has already been questioned twice by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Fiscal Offenses, first as a witness in June 2023, then as a suspect in early May.
Recently, according to elements of the investigation of which AFP was aware and partly revealed by the Parisian, The financial investigating judge in charge of the case believes he has discovered evidence of the use of a secret telephone line by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. According to the judge, the telephone was used in particular by the former presidential couple to receive messages from the former paparazzi pope, Mimi Marchand (real name Michèle Marchand), also implicated, on the progress of the operation.
During her hearing in early May, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy denied that it was her phone. She said she «feel responsible» of the indictment of her husband. “I’m the one who should be indicted,” she said, accusing Mimi Marchand of having “used the name of [son] husband and [sien] in this matter to give himself weight with his colleagues.” Mimi Marchand, she continued, “is clever, but not necessarily true. […] She is very manipulative.” When asked, the singer’s lawyer, Paul Mallet, did not respond.
