The essence of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan enchantment trial: “It’s a trap by Ziad Takieddine” | EUROtoday

“It’s a trap by Ziad Takieddine, of course.” Brice Hortefeux persevered, through the second week of the enchantment trial of the Libyan financing case, earlier than the Paris Court of Appeal: his assembly on the finish of 2005 with a Libyan dignitary wished by the French anti-terrorist justice system, was a “trap” and in no case had the aim of secret financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s marketing campaign. The former president and 9 co-defendants have been tried on enchantment since March 16 and till June 3.

At first occasion, on September 25, 2025, the Paris Criminal Court declared Nicolas Sarkozy responsible of prison conspiracy and sentenced him to 5 years’ imprisonment, a wonderful of 100,000 euros, a ban from all public workplace for 5 years and deprivation of his civil and civic rights for a similar interval, because of “corruption at the highest level” of “exceptional seriousness”. Entered the Health jail on October 21 beneath the cameras of the entire world, Nicolas Sarkozy obtained his launch beneath judicial supervision three weeks later. A brand new authorized marathon has now begun for the previous President of the Republic who hopes to not return behind bars.

See additionallyFrance: Sarkozy again in courtroom within the Libyan case

• Tuesday March 24: Alexandre Djouhri explains the unbelievable escape of Gaddafi’s financier

He assures us, it was not an “exfiltration”. Intermediary Alexandre Djouhri, interviewed Monday and Tuesday, refuted that Nicolas Sarkozy’s France had sought to take away the large financier from Libya to stop him from revealing his secrets and techniques to French justice.

For the primary interrogation of the Franco-Algerian businessman, sentenced at first occasion to 6 years in jail, the Paris Court of Appeal selected to concentrate on his position within the hasty departure from France, in May 2012, of Bechir Saleh, the previous chief of employees of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The 67-year-old defendant will later clarify different features of the case.

“He was not exfiltrated, Mr. Saleh,” declares Alexandre Djouhri in a matter-of-fact tone, in a go well with and tie, with a darkish scarf tied round his neck.

The two males have identified one another since 1986. At the time, Alexandre Djouhri was the pinnacle of a “Euro-Arab-African press agency” and the Libyan ambassador to Algeria. They struck up a friendship and over time, Alexandre Djouhri, who grew to become an middleman, suggested the person who progressively grew to become Gaddafi’s right-hand man, till turning into the president of the Libyan sovereign fund.

After the loss of life of the dictator and the autumn of the regime, Bechir Saleh was discreetly exfiltrated for the primary time from Libya to Tunisia, the place Alexandre Djouhri discovered him earlier than sending him, aboard a particular airplane, to France, in November 2011. “He’s a brother, we don’t abandon those we love”, explains the latter, who’s keen on grandiloquent formulation.

At the top of April 2012, the Mediapart information web site printed a notice on alleged Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s victorious presidential marketing campaign in 2007, giving the actual kickoff to this explosive political-financial affair.

A number of days later, when he was the topic of an Interpol pink discover, following a grievance from Libya which accused him of embezzlement of public funds, Bechir Saleh was seen in Paris and photographed by Paris-Match.

On May 2, Nicolas Sarkozy assured on the radio that if a pink discover had been issued, Bechir Saleh can be arrested. On the third, the Libyan left France, alone aboard a personal airplane taking off from Le Bourget airport. However, the identify of the one passenger on the flight is… Alexandre Djouhri.

“First of all, it’s not an exit from the territory as it is presented, it is not rushed,” the defendant corrects on the bar. “It was Bechir Saleh who spoke to me about it a few days before,” provides Alexandre Djouhri, explaining that the dignitary, from a robust tribe in Libya, wished to go to a gathering in Niger to resolve the scenario in his nation. “That’s the only reason,” he says.

And concerning the passenger’s identify, “it was Bechir who asked me to put my name and not his, because there was a physical risk when he arrived in Niger.”

“There was no police control at the borders?”, wonders the president of the courtroom of enchantment, Olivier Géron.

“They saw me, they greeted me, they recognized Bashir, he got on the plane,” replies Alexandre Djouhri with disarming simplicity. “Often, at Le Bourget, we do not control passengers who board private planes,” he provides.

Béchir Saleh, who initially took refuge in South Africa, won’t ever return to French territory. “When he went to Niger and saw how things were going in France, he was afraid of being extradited” to Libya, explains the middleman.

However, through the investigation, a number of protagonists spoke of stress exerted on the Libyan to silence him. Thus, the son of the Libyan dictator, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi – assassinated on February 3 in western Libya – had accused Alexandre Djouhri of getting threatened to kill Bashir Saleh if he spoke of Libyan financing.

“He’s lying,” asserts the defendant. “That was a deal that the judiciary proposed to Seif al-Islam,” he continues. “This whole issue has been based on compromises.”

• Wednesday 25 March : Brice Hortefeux claims to have been “trapped”

The former minister returns to the stand to eliminate this “infamous label of criminal association”, which earned him at first occasion 4 years in jail, two of that are closed, adjustable: he’s suspected of getting hatched, in live performance with Claude Guéant, a “corruptive pact” with the Libyan authorities, on behalf of his good friend Nicolas Sarkozy.

In explicit, his secret assembly, on December 21, 2005, in Libya with Abdallah Senoussi, brother-in-law of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, though sentenced in France to life imprisonment for the assault towards the UTA DC-10 (170 useless).

Justice suspects that the quantity 2 of the regime would have notably counted on a presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy for an amnesty or a pardon: Claude Guéant is accused of getting hatched this pact throughout the same assembly on September 30, simply earlier than an official go to by Nicolas Sarkozy, and Brice Hortefeux returned to validate it.

Then Minister Delegate for Local Authorities, Brice Hortefeux assures him, he was “in no hurry” to go to Libya, it was the Libyans who have been asking. And this journey couldn’t have been extra official. Why then this secret dinner at Senoussi’s, of which the diplomatic authorities usually are not knowledgeable?

Brice Hortefeux says he was “trapped”, taken to Senoussi’s home the place he was allegedly lured by Ziad Takieddine. This “set trap”, the sulphurous Franco-Lebanese middleman is alleged to have organized it with a view to “gain credibility in order to collect money for his exclusive benefit” with commissions. Ziad Takieddine, who assorted enormously through the investigation and didn’t come to the primary trial, died within the fall.

President Olivier Géron sees Ziad Takieddine’s curiosity in such an ambush. Minus that of Senoussi. Brice Hortefeux gives the reply with this definition of an “intermediary”: “One who lies to one and who lies to the other”. Ziad Takieddine “of course also lied to Mr. Senoussi”.

“If I had met Abdallah Senoussi deliberately, I would say it. I am not saying it,” argues the previous MEP who claims to know “the pain of the families of the victims” of the assault. At this second, civil events shake their heads.

The assembly “lasted 40 minutes”. Once the well mannered expressions have been eliminated, Jacques Chirac’s well being, anti-terrorism, migration points, too brief to speak concerning the modalities of secret fund funds: “This demonstrates the inanity” of the accusations, Hortefeux defends. Senoussi “didn’t ask me for anything and I didn’t request anything.”

Moreover, earlier than his journey, he knew “nothing” about Senoussi’s authorized scenario, didn’t know “what kind of face he looked like” and “not once” did his identify seem on the diplomatic notes he had. Nor did the assembly seem on the go to program, proof that it was “unforeseen”.

On this level, “taking into account what [la justice] suspicious, it’s normal…”, moderates Olivier Géron, perplexed by Brice Hortefeux’s choice to not inform Nicolas Sarkozy of the “trap” into which he had fallen.

“For two reasons,” replies Brice Hortefeux. First, he was “annoyed” and had no want to “boast” about this imposed assembly. And above all, “nothing happened”.

Olivier Géron insists, he has “difficult” to know the political danger that this silence from “the personal friend of the Minister of the Interior” posed to him if the Libyan confab was revealed. Brice Hortefeux concedes “an error”, “not a fault”.

“Someone hits me” like Ziad Takieddine, “I would no longer have relations” with him. But Brice Hortefeux met him after the journey, Olivier Géron remains to be stunned. The defendant places issues into perspective: as soon as, simply after the presidential election, on the insistence of Ziad Takieddine.

As for Libya, he by no means returned there: “I had never heard of it before and I never heard of it again after.”

With AFP