French prosecutors today claimed to have irrefutable proof that former president Nicolas Sarkozy arranged a ‘corruption pact’ with the late Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
It was worth around £42million to Sarkozy, 69, prosecutors claim while Gaddafi wanted to see his oil-rich country rehabilitated after it was blamed for terrorist atrocities including the Lockerbie Bombing.
Sarkozy, who faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty, was notably suntanned when he took his place in a Paris dock on Monday afternoon.
He had just returned from a holiday in the Seychelles with his third wife, Carla Bruni, the 57-year-old former supermodel.
She was not in court, despite facing charges of her own in connection with the case which she also denies.
Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy accepted the millions in laundered cash from Gaddafi to fund his successful election campaign in 2007.
Jean-François Bohnert, head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said a 10 year investigation had led to Sarkozy appearing in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court.
‘The corruption pact was designed to improve relations with Libya,’ said Mr Bohnert.
French prosecutors today claimed to have irrefutable proof that former president Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured) arranged a ‘corruption pact’ with the late Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi
Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy accepted the millions in laundered cash from Gaddafi (pictured) to fund his successful election campaign in 2007
He insisted the prosecution ‘was not a political one’ and that Sarkozy ‘had not been found guilty in advance’.
And, focusing on an element of the case, Mr Bohnert said: ‘We have in the legal file proof that a total sum of €6 million (£5million) left Libyan public funds and arrived in France through intermediaries.’
In turn, counsel for Mr Sarkozy, who was on trial with 12 other defendants, said all of them vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
The charges were: ‘Corruption, receiving stolen public funds, illegal campaign financing, and criminal association’.
Sarkozy was last month definitively convicted of bribing a judge in a separate case, meaning he was likely to be wearing an electronic tag under the trousers of his dark blue lounge suit.
The PNF alleges that Sarkozy first requested financing during a visit to Libya when he was France’s Interior Minister in 2005.
This led to ‘the corruption pact’ between the politician and Gaddafi which saw suitcases full of cash being delivered by middlemen, it is alleged.
Within a few months of his election in 2007, Sarkozy invited Gaddafi to Paris for a state visit and praised him as a great friend and ‘Brother Leader’.
Muammar Al Qadhafi in Mali on December 12th, 1985
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, greets Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on December 10, 2007
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves during a break in a hearing on the first day of his trial
The financing case was aided by the Mediapart investigative news site, which in 2012 published a document signed by Libya’s intelligence chief which apparently proved the equivalent of £42million had been paid to Sarkozy
This was while Libya was still being viewed as a pariah state because of the downing of PanAm Flight 103, with the loss of 270 lives, over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 2008.The assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy four years earlier was also still causing outrage, especially as no-one was ever brought to justice for it.
Gaffafi’s head of military security and brother-in-law, Abdallah Senoussi, had also been found guilty in absentia of an attack of a French DC-10 plane which left 170 dead.
The financing case was aided by the Mediapart investigative news site, which in 2012 published a document signed by Libya’s intelligence chief which apparently proved the equivalent of £42million had been paid to Sarkozy.
Sarkozy insisted that the contract was a fake, but it was later ruled it can be used as evidence.
The former head of state’s former ministers Claude Gueant and Eric Woerth have also been charged in relation to the allegations, and are in the dock.
It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force jets led the mass bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob.
David Cameron was British Prime Minister at the time, and visited Libya with Sarkozy.
There have been claims that Sarkozy wanted his old friend and ally dead because of his potential to produce incriminating evidence.
It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force jets led the mass bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob
In this file photo taken on June 25, 2020, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves the funeral’s mass of late French Justice minister Pascal Clement at the Saint Peter church in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Nicolas Sarkozy and former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi pictured during the signature of 10 billion euros of trade contracts between the two countries, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on December 10, 2007
Carla Bruni (left, pictured with her husband in June 2024) is accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko’ – a complex and allegedly illegal plan to try to keep her husband out of jail
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, right, and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy during the National anthems at the Bab Azizia Palace in Tripoli on July 25, 2007
Sarkozy has already become France’s first ex-president to be tried for alleged crimes carried out in office.
Within a few days of Sarkozy losing his presidential immunity from prosecution in 2012, fraud squad detectives raided the Paris home he shares with his third wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni.
In 2021, Sarkozy was found guilty of illegally funding his campaign for re-election and faced prison time.
The verdict handed down at the Paris Correctional Court followed a five-week trial during which prosecutors said the politician was guilty of fiddling the books during his unsuccessful 2012 bid to become head of state.
It followed Sarkozy already being given a three-year sentence for bribing a judge – a conviction that was confirmed on appeal last month, as Sarkozy was told that he could serve his prison sentence while wearing a tag instead.
Carla Bruni is meanwhile accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko’ – a complex and illegal plan to try to keep her husband out of jail.
She has been charged with a range of corruption offences, including ‘witness tampering in an organised gang’, and could be imprisoned for a up to 10 years if found guilty in a separate trial.
Like her husband, Ms Bruni denies any wrongdoing.
Sarkozy’s conservative predecessor as President of France, the late Jacques Chirac, received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption, but this related to his time as Mayor of Paris.
The last French head of state to go to a prison cell was Marshal Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.
The Gaddafi trial is listed for three months, and is likely to end in early April.
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