SARKOZY DETAINED ON BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS.

Investigation into financing tied to Gadhafi

PARIS • Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, was taken into police custody Tuesday over allegations he illegally accepted US$68.5 million from the government of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to finance his successful 2007 presidential campaign.

The detention of Sarkozy — France’s president between 2007 and 2012 — represented a major development in what is now likely to become an explosive political scandal.

Sarkozy, 63, has repeatedly denied allegations that he took money from Gadhafi, slamming the accusations as “grotesque” and “crude manipulation.”

Although an investigation began in 2013, Tuesday marked the first time authorities have questioned Sarkozy on the matter. Under French law, authorities can hold a suspect in custody for up to 48 hours before deciding whether there are sufficient grounds to launch a formal investigation.

Brice Hortefeux, who served as France’s interior minister under Sarkozy, was also questioned by police Tuesday, although not taken into custody.

If the allegations are true, it would mean Sarkozy knowingly violated France’s campaign finance laws, which in 2007 capped campaign funding at US$28.8 million. In the presidential election that year, Sarkozy narrowly defeated Ségolène Royal, a Socialist, in the final round of the vote.

Investigators and journalists have long scrutinized potential connections between the former centre-right president and Gadhafi.

In 2012, Mediapart, a French investigative news outlet, drew on a memo allegedly from Libyan security service archives to report that Sarkozy’s campaign had received 5o million euros from Gadhafi’s government.

In November 2016, Ziad Takieddine, a FrenchLebanese millionaire arms dealer and the uncle of human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, told Mediapart that he personally oversaw the cash transfer of a portion of that money — 5 million euros ($6.3 million) — to Sarkozy’s chief of staff, Claude Guéant, in late 2006 and early 2007.

“I discovered things that should no longer stay hidden,” Takieddine said to Medipart. He is also the man who first introduced Sarkozy to Gadhafi.

In 2015, French judges filed preliminary charges against Guéant in connection with the case.

The allegations also intensify public scrutiny of Sarkozy, who is set to stand trial in a separate case concerning allegations that his unsuccessful 2012 reelection campaign illegally exceeded campaign spending limits. Sarkozy has denied those accusations, too.

FRANCOIS MORI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, left, was placed in custody on Tuesday as part of an investigation that he received millions of euros in illegal financing from the regime of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, right.