Former President Nicolas Sarkozy was heard Tuesday in free hearing in Nanterre by the financial investigators of Oclciff then his home was searched in the judicial investigation on the retraction of the accusations of Libyan financing of his presidential 2007 formulated by the intermediary Ziad Takieddine, AFP learned from a source familiar with the matter. His wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was heard as a simple witness, according to this source. The national financial prosecutor’s office confirmed to AFP this information in this case in which justice suspects at least eight protagonists of having participated, with the possible endorsement of the former head of state, in an operation so that the sulphurous Franco-Lebanese intermediary withdraws, at the end of 2020 against remuneration, his accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy.
Start of the search around 2:30 p.m.
The Sarkozy couple arrived discreetly at the Oclciff (Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses), in Nanterre, this Tuesday, June 13 in the morning, in front of which AFP journalists were present. Around 2:30 p.m., Nicolas Sarkozy drove to his home in a private cul-de-sac in the 16th arrondissement of Paris to be searched, followed by half a dozen investigators, AFP journalists noted.
Asked by AFP, Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyer and entourage did not respond immediately. Depending on the analysis that will be made of his statements and the incriminating and exculpatory elements, Nicolas Sarkozy could be exonerated, but he could also be the subject of a summons for an indictment.
The case exploded in November 2020 when Ziad Takieddine, the main prosecution witness against Nicolas Sarkozy since 2012, had made a spectacular about-face on BFMTV and Paris Match by declaring that the former head of state had ” not touched a penny, cash or no cash, for the 2007 presidential election from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. On the run to Lebanon, to escape his conviction in the Karachi case, Mr. Takieddine reconsidered his remarks two months later before the investigating magistrates.
Eight suspected protagonists
The PNF opened a judicial investigation into these facts in May 2021, before a first wave of arrests the following month, which notably concerned the “queen of the paparazzi” Mimi Marchand. According to the hearings and the elements gathered by the investigation, justice suspects to date at least eight protagonists of having participated, with the possible endorsement of the former head of state, in an operation so that the sulphurous intermediary withdraws its accusations, for a cost recently estimated at at least 608,000 euros by the investigators.
The money, essentially mobilized by the recently deceased financier Pierre Reynaud, was donated to various alleged protagonists, including the intermediary Noël Dubus, already convicted of fraud, but also an advertiser, Ziad Takieddine and a Lebanese close to this last. At the beginning of March, the PNF extended the judicial investigation to facts of “concealment of witness tampering”, a qualification which could correspond to the role of Nicolas Sarkozy as it appears in certain statements by the protagonists in the investigation.
During the investigation into this “case of major gravity”, in the words of the investigating judge in an order from the end of 2021, several protagonists assured that Nicolas Sarkozy was following the operation closely even before its public revelation. , statements that seem to be corroborated by telephone exchanges. The judge, himself, evokes in an investigation report of August 2022 “reports of the operation” which would have been made by Michèle (Mimi) Marchand to “Zébulon”, nickname attributed to Nicolas Sarkozy.
A final decision awaited by the investigating judge
For his part, Noël Dubus declared that the former head of state had said he was “very happy” with the famous interview of November 2020 even before the public broadcast of it, or that he had ” validated the idea” a subsequent key step in this retraction. According to elements of the investigation, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was heard on Tuesday as a simple witness, in particular because “Mimi” Marchand argued that she had met with her friend, the singer and wife of Nicolas Sarkozy to justify trips to the chef’s home. of the State at key moments of the operation.
Finally, Nicolas Sarkozy’s longtime lawyer, Thierry Herzog, was also heard as a free suspect in this case at the end of May, according to the source close to the case confirmed by the judicial source. Concerning the main investigation into suspicions of Libyan financing of its 2007 presidential campaign, the PNF requested in May the referral to corrections of thirteen people, including Nicolas Sarkozy. The final decision rests with the investigating judge in charge of this case.