Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in his court statement published yesterday blasted what he said was a lack of evidence for corruption charges against him over claims that late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi funded his 2007 election campaign.
The day after he was charged, the 63-year-old said in the statement published by the Figaro newspaper that he had been in “living hell” since the allegations emerged in 2011.
Demanding he be treated as a witness rather than a suspect, he urged magistrates to consider “the violence of the injustice” if it was proven, as he claims, that the accusations are a “manipulation by the dictator Qaddafi or his gang.”
“In the 24 hours of my detention, I have tried with all my might to show that the serious corroborating evidence required to charge someone did not exist,” Sarkozy said. “I stand accused without any tangible evidence through comments made by Mr Qaddafi, his son, his nephew, his cousin, his spokesman, his former prime minister.”
The allegations that Sarkozy took money from Qaddafi — who he helped to topple in 2011 — are the most serious of a myriad of investigations dogging him since he left office in 2012.
Judges on Wednesday decided they had enough evidence to charge the one-term president after five years of investigation and two days of questioning in police custody.
Sarkozy was charged with corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of Libyan public money, a judiciary source said.
“I’ve been living the hell of this slander since March 11, 2011,” when the allegations first emerged, Sarkozy said.
He is to have six months to appeal the charges and judges would have to make a further decision about whether they have sufficient proof to take the case to trial.
Investigators have since 2013 been looking into claims by several figures in Qaddafi’s ousted regime, including his son, Saif al-Islam, that Sarkozy’s campaign received cash from him.
A few months after his 2007 election, Sarkozy gave Qaddafi the red-carpet treatment during a state visit, which critics denounced as an attempt to rehabilitate an international pariah.
Saif al-Islam in 2011 told Euronews that Sarkozy must “give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign.”
Sarkozy has dismissed the allegations as the rantings of vindictive Qaddafi loyalists.
He has also sued the investigative Web site Mediapart for publishing a document allegedly signed by the Libyan intelligence chief showing that Qaddafi agreed to give Sarkozy up to 50 million euros (US$61.7 million).
Sarkozy in his statement lashed out at businessman Ziad Takieddine, who claims to have delivered three cash-stuffed suitcases from Qaddafi in 2006 and 2007.
Takieddine, who claimed he provided 5 million euros in three suitcases to Sarkozy and his chief of staff Claude Gueant, has “highly suspect characteristics and a questionable past,” Sarkozy said.
The legal investigation is also looking into a 500,000 euro foreign cash transfer to former French minister of the interior Claude Gueant and the 2009 sale of a luxury villa to a Libyan investment fund.
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