The necessities of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan enchantment trial: “Claude, see that” | EUROtoday

“Claude, see this.” Three phrases spoken in July 2007 by Nicolas Sarkozy and addressed to Claude Guéant, based on the latter’s account, which mark a turning level within the enchantment trial within the case of the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential marketing campaign.

After being questioned the earlier week by the previous head of state, Claude Guéant broke together with his former boss by recounting how Nicolas Sarkozy had requested him to handle the authorized state of affairs of the excessive Libyan dignitary Abdallah Senoussi throughout an official dinner in Tripoli, within the presence of Muammar Gaddafi, which the previous President of the Republic denied.

He and 9 co-defendants have been 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, on account of “corruption at the highest level” of “exceptional seriousness”. Entered the Health jail on October 21 underneath the cameras of the entire world, Nicolas Sarkozy obtained his launch underneath 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.

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• Tuesday April 14: Claude Guéant retaliates by proxy and destabilizes Nicolas Sarkozy

The hardest blow got here from his former right-hand man: prevented by his well being from attending the Libyan enchantment trial, it was via the voice of his lawyer that Claude Guéant destabilized Nicolas Sarkozy, who had questioned his integrity on the listening to.

For the final day of his interrogation, the distinction with earlier hearings couldn’t be extra merciless for the previous head of state.

Things turned bitter 5 minutes after the listening to opened. M^e Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, Claude Guéant’s lawyer, will get up and begins two tense hours of response to the previous president, who stated he was “surprised” by what the file revealed to him about Claude Guéant.

These “extremely violent challenges to (his) integrity” brought about his consumer to be “deeply bruised,” based on Mr.^e Bouchez El Ghozi, who communicates a written certificates meant to place his factors on the “i”.

“If, as is likely, it is implied that personal interest would be a financial interest, I would like to affirm that I have never in my life received or requested money from anyone. The implication is serious,” writes the 81-year-old former prefect.

In addition to his secret assembly with the brother-in-law of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Abdallah Senoussi, Claude Guéant is accused of getting accepted a luxurious watch, then 500,000 euros from the middleman Alexandre Djouhri.

“Why are you reasoning hypothetically for Claude Guéant” by suggesting that he may have benefited from Libyan cash? asks M^e Butcher El Ghozi, calm however implacable. “Reasoning by hypothesis would be admissible for Claude Guéant but not for you?” The absence of proof of Libyan financing of his marketing campaign is a central argument of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Also learnThe gist of Sarkozy’s Libyan enchantment trial: unimaginable to “believe you didn’t know it”

Like final week, the ex-president praises the “remarkable” work of his former secretary normal on the Élysée. But he repeats his discomfort concerning “elements that appeared in the file which could not relate to his work”.

There is, nonetheless, one thing that M^e Bouchez El Ghozi struggles to know: how may the one whom Nicolas Sarkozy described as an “honest man” at first occasion out of the blue now not be one a 12 months later?

“Power presents such pressure that some people can, at one time or another, lose control,” the defendant speculates. Then, slightly additional on, icy: “Perhaps it took me some time to digest. Sometimes I found that certain things were a little indigestible. Indigestible, that’s the word. And still, I’m very calm.”

The lawyer doesn’t launch the embrace. Nicolas Sarkozy, unusually nervous, will get irritated. “Sorry, but you are not my lawyer,” he stated. “No. I’m Claude Guéant’s,” replies M^e Bouchez El Ghozi, earlier than whispering: “Unfortunate minds could consider that these declarations could constitute a new defense strategy facilitated by the medically imposed absence of Claude Guéant…”

“I said what I had to say, not out of strategy, out of conviction,” retorts Nicolas Sarkozy. Even if, he says, his conviction could have performed a task in his progress: “The criminal association, that’s too much for me.”

In his certificates, Claude Guéant maintains that Muammar Gaddafi mentioned the authorized destiny of his brother-in-law, Abdallah Senoussi, with Nicolas Sarkozy, newly elected president, throughout an official dinner in Tripoli in July 2007. “Claude, see that”, the top of state then allegedly requested him.

An episode categorically denied by Nicolas Sarkozy, who scathed: “I am happy for Claude Guéant that he has found this memory and that he is in enough shape to remember what happened 19 years ago.”

At the helm, Nicolas Sarkozy says he understands “that there could have been a lot of sadness, regret, bitterness” in Claude Guéant. “But when I returned to the (prison of) Health, do you think I had grandiose feelings towards my friends who had met Senoussi?” he squeaks.

• Wednesday April 15: “Memory sometimes comes back when we are accused,” warns Claude Guéant’s lawyer

No listening to that day. But the day after the breakup between Claude Guéant and Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Guéant’s lawyer intervened within the media. “Memory sometimes comes back when we are accused,” he warns, including to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his consumer was prepared to offer “additional certification” within the occasion of a brand new assault by Nicolas Sarkozy earlier than the court docket of enchantment judging the Libyan case.

“This rupture was caused not by Claude Guéant but by Nicolas Sarkozy last week, who completely changed tactics, saying from now on that he was going to try to implicate Claude Guéant,” M^e Bouchez El Ghozi, who recalled on Tuesday that within the first occasion, a 12 months in the past, the previous head of state portrayed his former right-hand man as an “honest man”.

This change in technique by Nicolas Sarkozy goals to “discard himself and thus claim that he was not aware of the Libyan requests on the legal situation” of the Libyan dignitary Abdallah “Senoussi and the instructions given by him to this effect”, continued the lawyer.

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“Everything that Claude Guéant has done has always been within the framework of his functions and on the instructions of Nicolas Sarkozy,” he added.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s choice to implicate Claude Guéant, “not only will it not earn him a point in court, but it should harm him”, estimated M^e Bouchez El Ghozi.

“I think that any new indictment of Claude Guéant, on his actions carried out within the framework of his functions or on his probity, will be the subject of additional certification,” he threatened.

“We are not making any comments. The hearing is taking place in front of the court, not in the media. The hearing, nothing but the hearing”, reacted Nicolas Sarkozy’s protection crew, contacted by AFP.

• Thursday April 16: a fee for the middleman Alexandre Djouhri who questions

After Claude Guéant’s twist, the trial resumed to look at a fee of two million euros paid by Airbus to middleman Alexandre Djouhri in November 2006 to a checking account in Singapore.

Alexandre Djouhri obtained at first occasion the heaviest sentence of all of the defendants: 6 years in jail with a committal warrant, a wonderful of three million euros and a 15-year ban on managing a enterprise, for “aggravated money laundering”, “active corruption” and “influence peddling”.

He defined on Thursday that Airbus owed him 15 million euros for his position in signing a contract for the sale of twelve Airbus planes to Libya. But Édouard Ullmo, former gross sales director for Africa and Asia-Pacific at Airbus, disputes the slightest position that Alexandre Djouhri may have performed and claims to not be the creator of the switch.

“I discovered this transfer as part of the procedure. I never asked anything from Mr. Djouhri. Nor did I ask other parties to pay him. Two companies are involved, but I am completely unrelated to these transfers,” the previous Airbus govt asserted in court docket, based on the account given by Mediapart.

So who?, asks the president of the court docket. Édouard Ullmo is aware of nothing about it.

“I feel like a scapegoat. There are two solutions: either Alexandre Djouhri managed to convince someone above me that he had played a role; or the plane affair served as a pretext to pay him for something else,” he replies, based on the transcription of the alternate made by Le Monde.

With AFP