“I understand them, but it makes me dirty to answer questions like that.” Questioned by the president, during the trial for suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his annoyance. “Did at any point in the tent you mention a request for funding? », asks President Nathalie Gavarino. ” Madam. It’s painful for me to answer such a question,” he replied.
The man who would become President of the Republic two years later is suspected of having entered into a “corruption pact” with the wealthy Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi during his visit to Tripoli in October 2005, when he was minister of Interior. “I am therefore for the first time in my life in Libya, facing Muammar Gaddafi [qui] only speaks in Arabic and our interpreters don’t let us go for a second.”
“It’s crazy, it’s so grotesque”
He assures that the interpreter was close to President Jacques Chirac, with whom “tensions were at their height” at the time. “And I will, through Mr Chirac's interpreter, ask for funding for my campaign? It’s crazy, it’s so grotesque.” Then, he insists that there is “nothing” against him in this matter: “Is there the beginning of the beginning of a concrete element, which means that I must constantly justify myself? »
-Nicolas Sarkozy is on trial until April 10 for corruption, concealment of embezzlement of public funds, illegal campaign financing and criminal association. He faces ten years in prison and a fine of 375,000 euros, as well as deprivation of civil rights (therefore ineligibility) of up to five years.
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