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Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy went on trial on Monday charged with accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Sarkozy’s career has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election.
He has been convicted in two other cases, charged in another and is being investigated in two more. But he remains an influential figure and is also known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.
The new trial started barely half a month after France’s top appeals court in December rejected his appeal against a one-year prison sentence for influence peddling, which he is to serve by wearing an electronic tag rather than spending time in jail.
Sarkozy was present in the Paris court when his latest trial opened with a session devoted to procedural issues, telling the presiding judge when asked for his profession that he was “a lawyer” and giving his personal status as “married”.
Twelve suspects are standing trial, including former close aides, accused of devising a pact with Kadhafi to illegally fund Sarkozy’s victorious 2007 presidential election bid.
They deny the charges.
If convicted, Sarkozy, 69, faces up to 10 years in prison for charges of concealing embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing.
The trial is due to last until April 10.
Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain.
“He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution,” Ingrain said.
“There was no Libyan financing.”
Sarkozy is still not wearing the electronic tag — a process which could take several weeks — and spent Christmas in the Seychelles with his wife — model and singer Carla Bruni — and their daughter.
– Alleged pact with Kadhafi –
The current case follows a decade of investigations.
It is alleged that Sarkozy and senior figures pledged to help Kadhafi rehabilitate his international image in return for campaign financing.
Tripoli had been blamed by the West for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland and UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.
Another alleged beneficiary was Kadhafi’s brother-in-law and intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, who was jailed for life in absentia by France for the attack on UTA Flight 772.
Senussi is also wanted for questioning over the Lockerbie bombing.
Sarkozy has denounced the accusations as part of a conspiracy, insisting he never received any financing from Kadhafi.
“Our work is not political work. We are not politically engaged,” declared financial prosecutor Jean-Francois Bohnert of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which is leading the case.
“We only have one compass — it is the law.”
Others on trial include Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux. All three men were present in court.
The prosecution case is based on statements from seven former Libyan dignitaries, trips to Libya by Gueant and Hortefeux, financial transfers, and the notebooks of the former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, found drowned in the Danube in 2012.
– Witness tampering charges –
At a time when many Western countries were courting the maverick dictator for energy deals, Kadhafi visited Paris in December 2007, famously installing his tent in the centre of the city.
But France backed the United Nations-sanctioned military action that in 2011 helped oust the Libyan leader, who was then killed by rebels.
Sarkozy has said statements by former members of Kadhafi’s inner circle over the alleged financing are motivated by revenge.
The scandal erupted in April 2012, while Sarkozy was seeking re-election.
The Mediapart website published a bombshell article based on a December 2006 document it said showed a former Libyan official evoking an agreement over the campaign financing.
Sarkozy has long contended that the document is not genuine.
An embittered Sarkozy narrowly lost the 2012 election to Socialist Francois Hollande.
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key figure in the case and a fugitive in Lebanon, claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros in cash from Kadhafi in 2006 and 2007.
But in 2020, Takieddine retracted his statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and close allies may have paid the witness to change his mind.
In a further twist, Sarkozy was charged in October 2023 with illegal witness tampering, while his wife Bruni was last year charged with hiding evidence in the same case.
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