“N“We are waiting calmly for the statute of limitations to be established. This is a legal fact,” Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardo, two of the minister’s lawyers, told AFP.
“Everyone knew the intervention of Rachida Dati as lawyer for Renault-Nissan in 2009 and 2010. Everything is perfectly clear,” they assured.
The former Minister of Justice and former mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris has been under investigation since July 2021 for corruption and passive influence peddling by a person holding a public elective mandate.
She is suspected of having received 900,000 euros from RNBV, a subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan alliance, without any real work in return, between 2010 and 2012, while she was a lawyer and Member of the European Parliament (2009-2019).
The investigations also sought to determine whether this fee agreement could have been used to hide lobbying activity in the European Parliament, prohibited to any elected official.
In this case, Carlos Ghosn, who lives in Lebanon, has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since April 2023.
The former car magnate and the Minister of Culture deny any irregularities.
Ms. Dati’s defense had already raised the limitation period for the facts in 2021 before the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, in vain.
Her lawyers contacted her again after the refusal of the investigating judges responsible for this case, opened in 2019, to examine a new request to note the limitation period which was based, according to them, on “new, fundamental elements ” paid to the procedure.
The investigating magistrates had rejected this request on the grounds that the time limit, six months from the date of indictment in matters of limitation, had expired.
Before ruling on the admissibility of this new request, the investigating chamber must first say whether or not it is transmitting to the Constitutional Council a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) on this time limit.
Either the judges transmit the QPC, and therefore postpone their decision on the limitation period, or they dismiss it and consider the admissibility of the minister’s request.
If the statute of limitations is further set aside, Ms. Dati risks a trial before the criminal court.
Investigations into this case have been completed since September 2023 and the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) should issue its final indictment soon. The investigating judges will then decide whether or not to order a trial.
But if the Minister of Culture wins her case, the proceedings against her will be dropped.
According to two sources close to the case, the attorney general had requested during the hearing on May 7 that the prescription be rejected.
As a civil party in this case, Renault and its lawyers did not wish to comment.
