Sarkozy ally charged with corruption in Ghosn case
PROMINENT French Right-winger Rachida Dati has been charged over payments she received from disgraced former Renault boss Carlos Ghosn amounting to almost a million euros.
Ms Dati, a former justice minister in ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration, yesterday dismissed the charges as a political smear ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
She is considering running in the primaries for her conservative party, the Republicans.
France’s financial crimes unit said it was placing her under official investigation for “passive corruption by a person holding an elective mandate” and of “benefiting from abuse of power”.
The charges relate to consulting work she did for Mr Ghosn from 2010 to 2012, when she was also a Member of the European Parliament.
The charges could yet be dropped if
£765,000 Lawyer’s fees Ms Dati is alleged to have received in relation to consulting work she did for Mr Ghosn between 2010 and 2012
magistrates decide their serious suspicions of guilt are unfounded.
Ms Dati, 55, denies any wrongdoing. According to a source close to the investigation, Ms Dati, mayor of Paris’s 7th district, received €900,000 (£765,000) in lawyer’s fees from 2010-12.
The inquiry is seeking to clarify whether the work was purely legal or consisted also of lobbying, which would be illegal for an MEP.
According to Le Monde, Ms Dati’s remit was to help with Renault’s international expansion, especially in the Middle East and northern Africa.
She had asked for the work to be kept strictly confidential, it said.
Mr Ghosn fell from grace in November 2018 when he was arrested in Japan on financial misconduct allegations.
He spent 130 days in detention before jumping bail and smuggling himself out of the country in late 2019. Wanted by Interpol, he is now in Lebanon.
Ms Dati yesterday pledged to fight the charges, saying: “The justice system is being used for an ulterior political motive.”
“I will not allow judges to choose political officials,” she told Le Parisien.
“I will take part in this fight,” she added, apparently referring to party primaries ahead of next April’s presidential election. She has not yet officially applied and must do so before Sept 25.