French ex-leader Sarkozy decries ‘mad allegations’

was handed preliminary reported Thursday remerged during the campaign. charges Wednesday in an that Sarkozy said in his Sarkozy’s entourage investigation of his successful statement to the investigating did not immediately confirm PARIS — Former French 2007 campaign judges that “I am accused the text’s authenticity, President Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency. without any physical but did not dispute it either. defended himself Thursday The charges include illegally evidence.” Sarkozy’s spokeswoman did against the “mad allegations” funding the campaign, He said he was “living the not respond to requests for that he accepted passive corruption and receiving hell of this slander” since comment from The Associated millions of euros in illegal money from Libyan 2011 and denounced the Press. Sarkozy’s lawyer, campaign funding from the embezzlement. accusations as lies, according Thierry Herzog, arrived at late Libyan leader Moammar “I’m not above the law, to a text of the statement the former president’s home Gadhafi. but I’m not below it either,” published by the newspaper. in Paris Thursday morning.

“It’s an ignominious act, Sarkozy, 63, said during the The allegations were Investigators are examining not (just) a lie,” Sarkozy said TF1 interview. first made in 2011 by Gadhafi’s allegations that Gadhafi’s during a live television interview He was detained and son, Saif al-Islam. regime secretly gave on French station TF1. questioned by anticorruption According to the text, the Sarkozy 50 million euros “I owe the French people the police before he former president told investigators ($62 million) for his 2007 truth: I never betrayed their was given the preliminary that the allegations presidential election bid. trust.” charges by judges leading even cost him a re-election The former president was The one-term ex-leader the probe. Le Figaro newspaper bid in 2012 when they released on Wednesday

VOTED #1 BEST NEW AUTO DEALER 2017 I.V. night, but placed under judicial supervision. Details of the conditions he has been ordered to follow have not been revealed.

As France’s president from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy put France in the forefront of the NATO-led airstrikes against Gadhafi’s troops that helped rebel fighters topple Gadhafi’s regime in 2011. An investigation has been underway since 2013 into the case.

It got a boost when French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told the online investigative site Mediapart in 2016 that he delivered suitcases from Libya containing 5 million euros ($6.2 million) in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of sta , Claude Gueant.

Takieddine repeated his allegations during a live interview with France’s BFM TV on Wednesday night.

He claimed he personally handed a suitcase containing about $2.5 million in cash to Sarkozy at the then-candidate’s apartment and another suitcase with about $1.9 million to Sarkozy and a close aide at the French Interior Ministry.