Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin goes on trial today for allegedly plotting a smear campaign against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris’ most politically charged case in years.
Dubbed the trial of the decade, the judicial drama features a cast of powerful players in politics, industry and intelligence circles, beginning with Sarkozy, who is a civil plaintiff in the case.
A suave diplomat best remembered for leading the charge against the Iraq war at the UN, Villepin is accused of conspiring to slander Sarkozy at a time when the pair were waging a vicious battle to succeed Jacques Chirac as president.
PHOTO: EPA
The case dates back to 2004 and centers on a list — later proved to have been fabricated — of account holders at the Clearstream financial clearing house who allegedly received kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan.
One name on the bogus list was that of Sarkozy, then Chirac’s finance and interior minister, who suspects the president’s chosen heir Villepin of using the list to try to torpedo his bid for the presidency.
Villepin, 55, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and maintains that the case would have never gone to trial had it not been for Sarkozy’s “meddling” in the judicial process.
The trial is shaping up as a showdown between the two men, whose mutual hatred is legendary in French political circles.
But it will also cast light on the murky dealings of French intelligence and of one of the world’s top aerospace companies, EADS.
A former EADS vice president and Villepin ally, Jean-Louis Gergorin is also on trial as is the former head of an EADS research center, Imad Lahoud, who has reportedly confessed to falsifying the list.
Also on trial are management consultant Florian Bourges, who was accused of stealing Clearstream documents, and journalist Denis Robert, who broke the story.
Villepin faces up to five years in jail and a 45,000 euro (US$66,000) fine if convicted of “complicity in slander, complicity in the use of forgeries, dealing in stolen property and breach of trust.”
Villepin has waged a media offensive in recent weeks, accusing Sarkozy of being “a bit twisted” for insisting that the Clearstream affair was a plot to sabotage his bid for the presidency.
Sarkozy reportedly vowed to “hang up whoever did this on a butcher’s hook.”
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