Several sources close to the case, confirmed by a judicial source, indicated to AFP that the investigating chamber confirmed the orders of the two investigating magistrates noting the non-prescription of the facts and rejected a request for nullity.
Before the hearing, several sources on the defense side had indicated that in the event of defeat, appeals would be filed by Mr. Kohler and the two other senior state officials implicated. But at the end of the deliberations, no defense lawyer wished to comment.
Emmanuel Macron's right-hand man has been indicted since 2022 for illegal acquisition of interests for having participated as a senior official from 2009 to 2016 in several decisions relating to the Italian-Swiss shipowner run by his mother's cousins, the family Aponte.
Mr. Kohler was first implicated for facts dating back to the years 2009-2012, when he served as a representative of the State Participation Agency (APE) on the board of directors of STX France (now Chantiers de l'Atlantique) but also on the board of directors of the Grand Port Maritime du Havre (GPMH).
He is then suspected of having, between 2012 and 2016, participated in choices on files involving MSC in Bercy, in the cabinet of Pierre Moscovici then Emmanuel Macron.
From the beginning, Alexis Kohler's defense claims on the one hand that he always kept himself away from any decision relating to MSC and that he informed his superiors of the existence of family ties “very beyond its ethical obligations.
On the other hand, it ensures at the end of a legal calculation that at least part of the facts, prior to 2014, are prescribed.
The investigating chamber, which studied this case behind closed doors on October 1, adopted on Tuesday a different position from the public prosecutor, in favor of a limitation period, by confirming an order of the investigating magistrates of April 2023 by which they concluded that the facts were not prescribed, in particular because of the “positive acts to conceal” this alleged conflict of interest attributed to Mr. Kohler.
This position makes it possible to place the start of the limitation period at the time when they were revealed by Mediapart, in May 2018, and therefore to trigger proceedings.
For the judges, Mr. Kohler in fact hid this connection by only informing his direct collaborators in a “restricted manner” and opted for a “deliberate non-revelation of this link to major” institutional or economic interlocutors involved with him in guidance relating to MSC.
Two former bosses of the APE, Bruno Bézard (2007-2010) and Jean-Dominique Comolli (2010-2012), implicated for their “pact of silence” with Mr. Kohler which would result from an “embarrassment” regarding this situation, their request for recognition of the prescription was also rejected on Tuesday.
Me Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Anticor, civil party at the origin of the relaunch of the investigations after the closing of a preliminary investigation in August 2019, described to AFP the decision as “satisfactory, especially in view of the numerous attempts to bury the file, including on the part of the president (Emmanuel Macron) himself.
Emmanuel Macron had provided an “employer certificate”, a note paid to the initial investigation, to clear his colleague. Later, he had publicly expressed on several occasions his “confidence” in his “honest” right-hand man and considered that the “procedure was not being completed”.
The investigations have been closed since April 2023 and subject to the opinion of the Court of Cassation in the event of an appeal, the PNF will then be required to take its requisitions and choose between keeping its initial position of opposition to prosecution or taking sides in the opinion of the court of appeal and the investigating judges.
The latter will then have the last word on the possible holding of a criminal trial.
