France has opened a judicial investigation into allegations
that former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election bid won illicit
funds from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the public prosecutor’s
office said on Friday.
He has previously hinted that he might consider another run for the presidency in 2017, but the outcome of these investigations could determine whether he will make a return to politics, observers say.
During the Nato bombings of 2011, Sarkozy was first accused of accepting millions of Gaddafi’s money by his son, Saif al-Islam.
An official at the prosecutor’s office said an inquiry had been opened after allegations made by a Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, himself under investigation in a separate affair of arms sales to Pakistan in the 1990s.
Sarkozy, who met Gaddafi in Paris in 2007, has always denied wrongdoing and has pointed out that he was the chief advocate of a NATO-led military campaign that resulted in Gaddafi’s overthrow and killing at the hands of rebel forces in 2011.
The funding of Sarkozy’s successful 2007 election campaign is already being examined as part of another inquiry into ties between his center-right UMP party and France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, heiress of the L’Oreal cosmetics empire.
Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation last month over allegations he took advantage of the mental frailty of the 90-year-old woman to win campaign funds. Sarkozy has always denied wrongdoing in the Bettencourt case too.
Source - Reuters
He has previously hinted that he might consider another run for the presidency in 2017, but the outcome of these investigations could determine whether he will make a return to politics, observers say.
During the Nato bombings of 2011, Sarkozy was first accused of accepting millions of Gaddafi’s money by his son, Saif al-Islam.
An official at the prosecutor’s office said an inquiry had been opened after allegations made by a Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, himself under investigation in a separate affair of arms sales to Pakistan in the 1990s.
Sarkozy, who met Gaddafi in Paris in 2007, has always denied wrongdoing and has pointed out that he was the chief advocate of a NATO-led military campaign that resulted in Gaddafi’s overthrow and killing at the hands of rebel forces in 2011.
The funding of Sarkozy’s successful 2007 election campaign is already being examined as part of another inquiry into ties between his center-right UMP party and France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, heiress of the L’Oreal cosmetics empire.
Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation last month over allegations he took advantage of the mental frailty of the 90-year-old woman to win campaign funds. Sarkozy has always denied wrongdoing in the Bettencourt case too.
Source - Reuters
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