Libya lies have made my life a living hell, says Sarkozy
NICOLAS SARKOZY, the former president of France, has dismissed accusations that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, funded his 2007 election campaign.
He called them a web of lies that had made his life a “living hell” and had cost him the possibility of re-election in 2012.
Mr Sarkozy said there was “no physical evidence to prove the claims” that he illegally received £42 million in funding from the Libyan regime. He was charged on Wednesday, after two days of questioning in police custody.
He protested his innocence in a statement to investigating magistrates, a copy of which was published in Le Figaro, the centre-right national newspaper
“I stand accused without any tangible evidence through comments made by Mr Gaddafi, his son, his nephew, his cousin, his spokesman, his former prime minister,” said Mr Sarkozy. “I’ve been living the hell of this slander since March 11, 2011” – when the allegations first emerged.
Mr Sarkozy, 63, the former leader of the centre-right Republicans, has been placed under formal investigation in France for passive corruption, illegal electoral campaign funding, and – most damning of all – concealing Libyan public funds. He gave Col Gaddafi a red-carpet reception in Paris in 2007, but relations soon soured and Mr Sarkozy put France at the forefront of Nato-led air strikes that helped rebel fighters topple the Gaddafi regime in 2011 and led to the dictator’s death.
In his court statement, Mr Sarkozy lashed out at Ziad Takieddine, a Francolebanese businessman, who claimed he delivered three cash-stuffed suitcases from Libya in 2006 and 2007, when Mr Sarkozy was preparing his first run for president.
After Mr Sarkozy’s arrest on Wednesday night, Mr Takieddine said: “I’m not the liar here.”
Before he was due to appear on live prime-time television last night, Mr Sarkozy said he had “paid a heavy price for this affair”.
He added: “Put it this way: I lost the presidential election of 2012 by 1.5 percentage points. The controversy initiated by Gaddafi and his henchmen cost me that 1.5 per cent.” Mr Sarkozy, nicknamed the “bling bling president” by many because of his perceived flashy style, is not the first ex-head of state to be charged in his country. Jacques Chirac, his predecessor, was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for embezzlement and misuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris.
Mr Sarkozy has already been charged in two separate cases, one relating to overspending on his doomed 2012 presidential campaign and another for alleged “influence peddling”.