PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP
Ziad Takieddine, November 17, 2016 in Nanterre.
JUSTICE – He will not be on the stand but he persists. Ziad Takieddine, suspected of having participated in the transfer of funds as part of the affair of the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007, maintained his version of the facts this Monday, January 6, as this sprawling trial opens .
The former President of the Republic is accused of having spent at the end of 2005, and with the help of his very close friends Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, a “corruption pact” with the wealthy Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who fell in 2011, so that he “support” financially his accession to the Élysée. With, among the intermediaries involved, Ziad Takieddine. “ Sarkozy went to see Gaddafi, he asked for money from Gaddafi. I can say that Gaddafi paid him up to 50 million euros,” maintain this January 6th the interested party at the microphone of RTL.
In a video published by Mediapart in 2016, Ziad Takieddine, a Franco-Lebanese businessman, claimed to have given five million euros in cash, from Libya, in 2006 and 2007 to Nicolas Sarkozy and his chief of staff Claude Guéant . He then returned to his remarks by clearing the former president, before finally retracting.
Takieddine ready to face justice, but at a distance
Nicolas Sarkozy and his defense have always disputed the businessman’s assertions. “In the file, we counted no less than 16 different versions given by Ziad Takieddine so what you are telling me there could be a 17th version that we will take with as much caution as the 16 others”sweeps away the lawyer of the former president Christophe Ingrain, at the microphone of RTL.
Ziad Takieddine was convicted in 2020 for defamation against Claude Guéant. At the same time, he has been indicted since 2016 for complicity in corruption and influence peddling in the Libyan financing affair. However, he will not be present at the hearing this Monday. “No one summoned me,” he assured RTL while saying he was ready to face justice, but from Lebanon where he fled. At the same time, he was convicted in the Karachi case. The appeal decision is expected on January 21.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.fr
