the trial of Nicolas Sarkozy and 12 other defendants has resumed

The hearing at the trial on suspicion of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign, for which the former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy and 12 other defendants are being tried at the Paris Criminal Court, has resumed after an interruption of one hour and a half, Monday January 6.

The court had withdrawn to deliberate on a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) filed by the lawyer of Khaled Ali Bugshan, a Saudi billionaire accused of having participated in a financial arrangement also involving Claude Guéant, also prosecuted . After deliberation, the president announced that the QPC would not be transmitted to the Court of Cassation, and that the debates could therefore continue, with the examination of the exceptions raised by the defense lawyers, reports our journalist on site. Follow our live stream.

A “corruption pact” at the heart of the accusation. Nicolas Sarkozy is accused of having spent, at the end of 2005, notably with the help of his very close friends Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, a “corruption pact” with the extremely wealthy Libyan dictator so that he “support” financially his accession to the Elysée. Tried for corruption, concealment of embezzlement of public funds, illegal campaign financing and criminal association, he faces ten years in prison and a fine of 375,000 euros, as well as deprivation of civil rights (therefore ineligibility) of up to at five years old.

A “fable”, according to Nicolas Sarkozy. The former president, who is facing his fifth trial, persists in saying that this affair is a “fable”. If this funding had existed “so massively”, “Why is there no proof of this? Not even a beginning?” he said during an interrogation. The judges recognized in their order for reference that there was no “irrefutable proof” but one “clue bundle”. Definitively convicted in the so-called “wiretapping” affair, Nicolas Sarkozy should be placed under an electronic bracelet in a few weeks.

Several other defendants tried. Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of having allowed “perfect knowledge of the facts” his relatives for recovery of the money. Four members of his close guard at the time are therefore sent back to his side, Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux, Eric Woerth and Cédric Gaubert. The latter, according to the judges, “organized” and received “fund transfers” from Libya, via intermediaries Ziad Takieddine and Alexandre Djouhri. The first, on the run in Lebanon, should be tried in absentia. On the Libyan side, only the regime’s former financier, Bachir Saleh, is referred to French justice. Targeted by an arrest warrant, he should also be tried in his absence. Furthermore, French justice recently learned of the death done of the accused, Sivajothi Rajendram. The termination of the proceedings against him should be made official during the trial.