Libyan trial: Nicolas Sarkozy on the stand to answer Claude Guéant | EUROtoday

At the attraction trial on accusations of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential marketing campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy is named again to the stand on Wednesday April 29, the place he should be questioned about two writings by his former right-hand man Claude Guéant.

Ill, the previous secretary basic of the Élysée can’t attend the debates. He discovered remotely of the questioning of his integrity by Nicolas Sarkozy, suggesting earlier than the Paris Court of Appeal that his former collaborator, actually “remarkable”, may even have been motivated by a course of of private enrichment.

Claude Guéant, 81, responded with certificates dated April 11 and 26: with out immediately incriminating him, he contradicted the previous head of state and shattered their hitherto united entrance.

An important cog within the conquest of the Élysée after which within the train of energy, the previous prefect by no means did something aside from “follow [les] instructions” from Nicolas Sarkozy, he insists.

In this trial, which is able to finish on the finish of May earlier than a choice in November, for Nicolas Sarkozy his honor as a former president and his freedom as a citizen are at stake, he who has already spent 20 days behind bars after his conviction at first occasion to 5 years in jail for prison conspiracy.

He was discovered responsible of letting Claude Guéant and his pal Brice Hortefeux talk about hidden political financing with the Libyan authorities, which the three males deny.

In trade, the Libyans would have demanded diplomatic and financial compensation but in addition an examination of the authorized state of affairs of the brother-in-law of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi and quantity 2 of the regime, Abdallah Senoussi.

He was the topic of a global arrest warrant after his conviction in France to life imprisonment for having ordered the assault on the UTA DC-10, which left 170 lifeless in 1989.

There ought to be a whole lot of speak about Senoussi once more throughout this fifth day of interrogation of Nicolas Sarkozy. Did he ask his secretary basic, within the presence and on the request of Muammar Gaddafi, to look at the destiny of the person France considers a terrorist, on the finish of an official dinner in Tripoli on July 25, 2007?

Sentenced at first occasion to 6 years in jail for a sequence of crimes, Claude Guéant affirms this, however Nicolas Sarkozy provided “the most formal denial”.

Also learnThe gist of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Libyan attraction trial: “It’s up to Mr. Guéant to explain himself”

“Obviously aware”

Another topic, a gathering in Libya on the finish of 2005, wherein his pal and former lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and his colleague Francis Szpiner, took half, on the authorized examination of Senoussi’s state of affairs, in response to varied parts collected in the course of the investigation.

After claiming to have recognized nothing about it, Nicolas Sarkozy now considers this journey credible, in view of the weather within the file. But he assures that he was not on the origin of it and repeated on the listening to that “no one had informed him of this meeting”. Claude Guéant writes, nonetheless, that “Thierry Herzog spoke to the president about the mandate he had received” on this topic.

This episode and the Tripoli dinner, Claude Guéant continues, made “natural, and even unavoidable” the evocation on his a part of his personal occult assembly with Senoussi, a tête-à-tête on October 1, 2005 of which he had beforehand affirmed that he had no reminiscence of getting knowledgeable Nicolas Sarkozy.

The prosecution is satisfied that the “corruption pact” was established throughout this assembly, simply earlier than an official journey by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.

Finally, claims Claude Guéant, the previous president was “necessarily aware” of his 4 journeys to Libya between 2008 and 2010, made “at [sa] request”, on diplomatic and business topics. Nicolas Sarkozy explains that he has little reminiscence of it.

“What I know is that nothing has been done in favor of Abdallah Senoussi. Nothing has been promised,” he insisted. On this level, Claude Guéant doesn’t contradict him: if he inquired concerning the Libyan’s authorized state of affairs, it was in full consciousness that nothing was doable. And if he was capable of “leave things unresolved” with the Libyan authorities till 2009, it was “so as not to be too brutal” in a resurgent diplomatic relationship, he explains.

When requested, Claude Guéant’s lawyer, Me Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, refused to remark, as did Nicolas Sarkozy’s entourage.

With AFP