Off Investigation exclusively reveals that in Switzerland, the courts have just frozen the conviction of Bachir Saleh, former chief financier of Colonel Gaddafi, for “participation in a criminal organization” and “aggravated money laundering”. A few days before the opening in France of the trial of the alleged Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2007.
On January 6, the trial of the case of the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 electoral campaign finally opens. Scheduled over three months, this lengthy trial will see, in addition to the former President of the Republic, his first circle of the time. This is, among others, the case of former Interior Ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, Thierry Gaubert and Eric Woerth.
The former head of state will be tried for concealment of embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption, illegal financing of an electoral campaign, criminal association. All are presumed innocent.
Colonel Gaddafi having died in 2011, only one Libyan will appear alongside this happy clique: the former chief of staff of Muammar Gaddafi and former director of the LAP sovereign fund, Bachir Saleh. Now aged 78, this father of four children lives as a refugee in the United Arab Emirates despite an arrest warrant issued by France. He is accused of embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption of a foreign public official, laundering of embezzlement of public funds and passive corruption in an organized gang.
If his legal future in France remains uncertain, it suddenly became clearer in Switzerland on December 18. Against all expectations, the federal criminal court suspended a sentence handed down by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the (Swiss) Confederation and sent the case back for investigation.
Found guilty
To understand this incredible turnaround, we must go back to December 12, 2023. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose mission is to investigate and bring charges, declares Bachir Saleh guilty of “participation in a criminal organization” and “money laundering” by criminal order. “aggravated money”.
As former chief of staff to Muammar Gaddafi and ex-director of the sovereign fund Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), he is accused of having participated in a criminal organization called the “Men of the Tent”. According to the Swiss Public Prosecutor’s Office, this was made up of an informal circle of relatives of the Libyan Guide whose members enriched themselves “by diverting revenues from the national oil trade and by illegally appropriating other public resources”. In other words, by having embezzled public funds which were sometimes placed in Swiss banks.
The public prosecutor then sentenced Bachir Saleh to five months in prison and confiscated some of his bank assets. Unlike France, in Switzerland, you can be directly convicted by the equivalent of the public prosecutor’s office without going through trial. If the convicted person does not object to this decision within ten days, then it becomes enforceable. And this is precisely where the Swiss public prosecutor’s office got its feet wet.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is looking for the accused in South Africa…
Indeed, through his advisors in Switzerland, Bachir Saleh filed an opposition to his conviction by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on February 6, 2024. That is to say more than a month after the legal deadline. In theory, his appeal is therefore not valid. But – and this is incredible – the Public Prosecutor’s Office failed to locate Bachir Saleh to notify him of his conviction! More embarrassing, the services of the said ministry looked for him in South Africa where he actually resided a few years after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi.
However, after an assassination attempt which left him seriously injured, which occurred in February 2018, just after interviews in the French press, Bachir Saleh left Johannesburg to settle in the United Arab Emirates where he is better protected. Press articles that the Swiss Public Prosecutor’s Office has obviously not seen attest to this on the internet… from 2018…
Even more damning, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, although in contact with the French investigators from OCLCIFF, who were then diligently investigating the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign, was unaware that Bachir Saleh had mandated the French lawyer Eric Moutet to represent him in France. The Swiss will therefore never contact Mr. Moutet to ask him how to contact his client…
The court rules in favor of Bachir Saleh
Faced with this failure, Saleh’s lawyers in Switzerland were happy to claim the validity of the appeal formulated by their client against his conviction on Swiss soil. This is because Bachir Saleh was unaware that he had been convicted and could therefore hardly formulate an appeal… And as Swiss law provides in this case, it is up to a court in due form, in the federal criminal court, to rule on the validity of the appeal. The stakes are high: the conviction could be frozen.
It is this precise point that the federal court has just ruled: “it results (…) that the MPC (Public Ministry of the Confederation) did not undertake all the research which could reasonably be required to determine the place of stay of the warned”; “ultimately, it is noted that Bashir Saleh Bashir validly filed opposition to the criminal order issued by the MPC on December 12, 2023”; “The procedure (…) is suspended and the case referred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Confederation”. In other words, the file is postponed indefinitely…
Blanche Chatwin Bouvier
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