The gist of Sarkozy’s Libyan attraction trial: not possible to “believe you didn’t know it” | EUROtoday

“The duty to remember has been sacrificed on the altar of personal ambitions.” Relatives of the victims of the UTA DC-10 accused Nicolas Sarkozy and his co-defendants, in the course of the third week of the attraction trial within the case of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential marketing campaign of the previous head of state, of getting forgotten the 170 individuals killed in 1989 on this assault carried out by the Libyan secret companies. At subject: the key assembly on the finish of 2005 between Brice Hortefeux and Abdallah Senoussi, brother-in-law of Muammar Gaddafi and sentenced in France to life imprisonment for the DC-10 assault.

Nicolas Sarkozy and 9 co-defendants have been tried on attraction since March 16 and till June 3. At first occasion, on September 25, 2025, the Paris Criminal Court declared Nicolas Sarkozy responsible of felony conspiracy and sentenced him to 5 years’ imprisonment, a positive 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, as a result of “corruption at the highest level” of “exceptional seriousness”. Entered the Health jail on October 21 below the cameras of the entire world, Nicolas Sarkozy obtained his launch below 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.

Also learnThe essence of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan attraction trial: “It’s a trap by Ziad Takieddine”

• Monday March 30 and Tuesday March 31: the implausibilities of Brice Hortefeux

Questioned the earlier week by the president of the Paris Court of Appeal, Olivier Géron, Brice Hortefeux this time answered questions from the legal professionals of the civil events and the general public prosecutor’s workplace, giving a number of solutions which left the viewers perplexed.

The former minister is suspected of getting organized with Claude Guéant a “corruptive pact” with the Libyan authorities, to finance the 2007 presidential marketing campaign of his buddy Nicolas Sarkozy. At the center of the case is a secret assembly: Brice Hortefeux spoke 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 in opposition to the UTA DC-10 (170 lifeless).

Like final week, Brice Hortefeux as soon as once more maintains that he was tricked by Ziad Takieddine to fulfill Abdallah Senoussi, whom he didn’t know. The former ambassador to Qatar and Saudi Arabia Bertrand Besancenot, though cited as a witness by Nicolas Sarkozy’s legal professionals, himself appears to doubt this assertion. “I read the press like everyone else. I knew that he had been convicted in absentia in France. A priori he is someone you do not meet. I would be surprised if Mr. Hortefeux did not know who Mr. Senoussi was,” he mentioned, in keeping with the account of the listening to made by Le Monde.

Then, when the lawyer for the Anticor affiliation, Claire Josserand-Schmidt, requested Brice Hortefeux when he realized that he was going to fulfill Abdallah Senoussi, he replied “in the car”. “On the journey, the name of Abdallah Senoussi was mentioned. It didn’t mean much to me but I made the connection with a member of the family who carried out the attack”, continues Brice Hortefeux, in keeping with the story from Mediapart, whose journalist wonders how the accused could make this connection “when he has been shouting for several hours explaining that the name Senoussi was completely unknown to him until now”.

Brice Hortefeux additionally maintains that he didn’t discuss this assembly to Nicolas Sarkozy, neither on the time of the occasions, nor in 2012 when Mediapart revealed it by publishing a notice from Moussa Koussa, the pinnacle of the Libyan international companies. “But when Nicolas Sarkozy reads the Mediapart article, he doesn’t say to you: ‘What is this story with Senoussi’?” asks President Olivier Géron. “No”, replies Brice Hortefeux in a small voice.

• Wednesday 1^er april : the anger of the mourners of the UTA DC-10 assault

The households of the lifeless within the UTA DC-10 assault (170 lifeless) in 1989 expressed their anger in direction of Nicolas Sarkozy and his co-defendants. Eleven ladies and one man marched earlier than the judges of the Paris Court of Appeal to specific their incomprehension of the key conferences in 2005 in Libya between collaborators of Nicolas Sarkozy and Abdallah Senoussi, brother-in-law of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi and organizer of the bomb assault which price the lives of their family members above the Niger desert.

“The Ténéré desert is soaked in the blood of 170 people murdered by Senoussi. This same Senoussi met by Guéant and Hortefeux. No one will make you believe that you didn’t know it,” snaps Maryvone Raveneau. Sitting lower than two meters from her, hardly ever turning his eyes in direction of the bar, Nicolas Sarkozy takes notes.

“The duty to remember has been sacrificed on the altar of personal ambitions,” accuses this 79-year-old girl, widow of the pilot of UTA flight 772.

The “daughters of DC-10”, the title of their affiliation, consider that their struggling and the reminiscence of the victims have been obscured within the title of motive of state and Franco-Libyan reconciliation. Despite the size of the mourning and the passage of time, the emotion resurfaced in courtroom. Sometimes the throat tightens.

On September 19, 1989, a UTA aircraft linking Brazzaville to Paris exploded in mid-flight after a stopover in N’Djamena, killing 170 individuals of 18 nationalities, together with 54 French. The investigation reveals that the suitcase bomb assault was carried out by the Libyan secret companies, in retaliation for France’s intervention in a battle between Libya and Chad.

Also learnThe gist of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan attraction trial: “I did not commit an act of corruption”

Ten years later, in 1999, the Paris Assize Court sentenced six Libyans in absentia to life imprisonment, together with the pinnacle of navy intelligence companies Abdallah Senoussi.

“170 dead, two and a half days of trial in absentia. None of the families will have the right to speak. A trial of lawyers and paper”, remembers Danièle Klein earlier than the courtroom of attraction, sporting on her shoulders the darkish blue jacket, too unfastened for her, of her brother killed at 30 years outdated within the assault.

However, it was with Abdallah Senoussi, below arrest warrant from the French justice system, that Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux every spoke in flip on the finish of 2005 in conferences in Libya out of sight of French officers.

These hidden conferences are the cornerstone of the accusation of Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential marketing campaign and earned the ex-president 5 years in jail at first occasion for felony affiliation.

Defended on this case, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux say they had been trapped by Abdallah Senoussi and by no means mentioned secret marketing campaign financing with him. Nicolas Sarkozy denies even having data of those conferences on the time.

“If by bad luck, in my brother’s place, someone from your immediate family had taken this UTA ​​flight, would you agree to meet, have dinner, negotiate with his assassin, the sponsor of this attack? I don’t think so,” challenges Françoise Tenenbaum-Klein.

In the mid-2000s, the households of the DC-10 helplessly witnessed the rehabilitation of the Gaddafi regime, which culminated within the official go to with nice fanfare of the Libyan Guide to France in December 2007, in the beginning of Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year time period.

Some of the households oppose this with their paltry means by organizing demonstrations with placards when Libyan dignitaries go by. But “cardboard, against the solid gold of contracts, is no match,” sighs Danièle Klein.

At first occasion, the courtroom discovered their utility as civil events admissible.

With AFP