Sarkozy in custody over illegal campaign fund allegations
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed in custody as part of an investigation into allegations he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from the regime of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
A judicial source said that Sarkozy was being held at the Nanterre police station, northwest of Paris.
Sarkozy has vehemently and repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the case, which involves funding for his winning 2007 presidential campaign.
Though an investigation has been under way since 2013, the case gained traction some three years later when French-lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told the online investigative site, Mediapart, that he delivered suitcases from Libya containing €5 million (£4.38m) in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff Claude Gueant.
A lawyer for Sarkozy, 63, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Investigators are examining claims that Gaddafi’s regime secretly gave Sarkozy €50m overall for the 2007 campaign.
Such a sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit at the time of €21m.
In addition, the alleged payments would violate French rules against foreign financing and declaring the source of campaign funds.
A former top aide of Sarkozy, former minister Brice Hortefeux, was reportedly questioned yesterday but was not detained. Sarkozy can be held up to 48 hours and could be placed under formal investigation after his hearing.
In the Mediapart interview published in November 2016, Takieddine said he was given €5m in Tripoli by Gadhafi’s intelligence chief on trips in late 2006 and 2007 and that he gave the money in suitcases full of cash to Sarkozy and Gueant on three occasions.
He said the handovers took place in the Interior Ministry, while Sarkozy was interior minister.
Takieddine has for years been embroiled in his own problems with French justice, centred mainly on allegations he provided illegal funds to the campaign of conservative politician Edouard Balladur for his 1995 presidential election campaign.
Takieddine made his accusations at a time when Sarkozy was taking part in the presidential elections’ primary to be the candidate of the rightwing party The Republicans. Sarkozy lost in the first round, ending third behind Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe. Fillon’s campaign was destroyed by corruption allegations.
According to Le Monde newspaper, investigators have recently handed to magistrates a report in which they detailed how cash circulated within Sarkozy’s campaign team.