The new trial for Nicolas Sarkozy opened this Monday, January 6 at the Paris judicial court. The ex-president will be tried for four months in the case of alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He arrived shortly before 1:30 p.m., accompanied by his lawyers and without making a statement to the numerous journalists who visited him. were waiting outside the courtroom of the judicial court, where heavy security was deployed. Those around him say so “combative” et ” determined “
He is suspected of having entered into a “corruption pact” with the wealthy Libyan dictator who fell in 2011 at the end of 2005, notably with the help of his very close friends Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, so that he would “financially support” his accession. at the Élysée. Accusations that he has always firmly contested, like most of the twelve other defendants. In addition to Guéant and Hortefeux, among the defendants is Éric Woerth, treasurer of the campaign, in which cash of unknown origin circulated, according to the investigation.
Eight defendants present
Claude Guéant at the Paris judicial court, this Monday, January 6, for the opening of the trial. Stéphane Geufroi / Ouest-France
The three former ministers were present at the opening of the trial, around 1:40 p.m. by Nathalie Gavarino, the president of the 32e correctional room. Others were absent, notably the notorious Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, now on the run in Lebanon. He is one of the two unofficial intermediaries implicated in this affair, with the discreet Franco-Algerian Alexandre Djouhri, who is present in the dock.
Missing in particular were Gaddafi's former chief of staff, Bechir Saleh, and the Saudis Khaled Bugshan and Ahmed Salem Bugshan, represented by their lawyer. A Malaysian lawyer also referred to court in these proceedings is also said to have died. The prosecution is awaiting confirmation from the Malaysian authorities.
Former minister Brice Hortefeux, upon his arrival at the hearing, this Monday, January 6. Stéphane Geufroi / Ouest-France
Tried for corruption, concealment of embezzlement of public funds, illegal campaign financing and criminal conspiracy, Nicolas Sarkozy faces ten years in prison, a €375,000 fine and ineligibility of up to 5 years. This is the fifth trial in five years of the former tenant of the Élysée, convicted at first instance and on appeal in the Bygmalion case (on the financing of his 2012 campaign, he filed an appeal), and definitely in the Bismuth folder.
A first week dedicated to procedural questions
Dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed in October 2011. Abd Rabbo Ammar/ABACA via Reuters
This first week will be mainly dedicated to procedural questions. The hearings will take place, until April 10, every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Nicolas Sarkozy should be devoted to suspicions of financing for the entire first month. Additional aspects will be discussed in the following weeks.
“He will fight the artificial construction imagined by the prosecution. There is no Libyan financing of the campaign,” declared his lawyer, Me Christophe Ingrain. For the prosecution, the “corruption pact” took place in the fall of 2005 in Tripoli, during a visit by the man who was Minister of the Interior but dreamed of being a candidate for the 2007 presidential election.
The prosecution was unable to establish an exact total amount of the alleged financing. But after ten years of investigation, a “cluster of clues” convinced the investigating judges of the existence of this financial support, which would have gone through Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux.
The supposed counterparts? First an international rehabilitation (Gaddafi will be welcomed in Paris at the end of 2007), but also the signing of major contracts and a legal helping hand to Abdallah Senoussi, director of Libyan military intelligence, sentenced to life in his absence in France for his role in the attack on UTA's DC-10 in 1989, which cost the lives of 170 people, including 54 French people. Around twenty relatives are civil parties to the trial.
