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Cash-from-Libya case: Sarkozy loses challenge

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PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost his bid on Thursday to throw out an inquiry into claims he used Libyan cash for his 2007 presidential campaign, a ruling that could require him and several associates to stand trial.


A Paris appeals court upheld the validity of the investigation, launched in 2012 after reports that Sarkozy accepted millions of euros from the regime of former strongman Moamer Kadhafi.


Sarkozy, 65, has denied the allegations. His lawyer declined to comment after the hearing on whether he would appeal the decision to France’s top criminal court.


But the failed legal challenge means the inquiry by two anti-corruption judges can continue, though it remains uncertain if they will eventually seek a trial.


Sarkozy has been accused by former members of Gaddafi’s regime that he took millions from the slain Libyan dictator, some of it delivered in cash-stuffed suitcases, in his successful 2007 presidential run. The investigation began after the Mediapart published a document in 2012, allegedly signed by Libya’s intelligence chief, purporting to show that Gaddafi agreed to give Sarkozy up to 50 million euros ($58 million at current exchange rates).


Judges are also investigating claims by a French-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, who said he delivered suitcases carrying a total of five million euros from the Libyan regime to Sarkozy’s chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.


Also charged in the case is Alexandre Djouhri, a businessman known to be close with several top right wing politicians, who is suspected of acting as a middleman for the cash transfers.


The former president was charged in 2018 with taking bribes, concealing the embezzlement of Libyan public funds and illegal campaign financing.


Two of his former ministers, Claude Gueant and Eric Woerth, are among several others who have also been charged in the case.


“I think the judges proved they were able to resist all sorts of pressure being put on them,” said Vincent Brengarth, a lawyer for the Sherpa anti-corruption NGO, one of the civil parties in the case.


LEGAL HEADACHES


The allegations that Sarkozy took money from Gaddafi — whom he welcomed to Paris with pomp and ceremony shortly after his election victory — are the most serious to emerge from several investigations that have dogged him since he left office.


The claims first emerged in 2011, as France and Britain were preparing a Nato-backed intervention to support rebels seeking to end Gaddafi’s tyrannical 41-year rule.


Besides the claims of cash-stuffed suitcases, investigators suspect that Sarkozy’s campaign got cash from the 2009 sale of a villa on the French Riviera to a Libyan investment fund managed by Bashir Saleh, Gaddafi’s former chief of staff. — AFP


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