For former French President Nicolas Sakozy, who was just released from prison a few weeks ago and who has just published a book in which he recounts his brief stay in prison, legal problems continue to accumulate. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) requested this Tuesday that he be prosecuted for having put pressure on a key witness in the affair of the Libyan financing of his 2007 electoral campaign, for which he was sentenced last September to five years in prison.
The prosecution accuses him of the offenses of illicit association for fraudulent purposes and organized gang. He also demands that Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni, also be prosecuted for the offense of illicit association. Michèle Marchand, close to the former president, is also involved. In the illegal campaign financing affair that took him to the presidency in 2007, the protagonist is Ziad Takieddine, the Franco-Lebanese businessman who provided the information that led to Sarkozy’s indictment.
Takieddine, who fled to Lebanon, died in September, just two days before the Paris court convicted Nicolas Sarkozy of maneuvering to obtain money from the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi to finance his election campaign. The Court found it proven that he had attempted to do so, through his collaborators (he was then Minister of the Interior). For this, he was found guilty of illicit association. The judges, however, failed to prove that the money had finally reached their hands. For this reason, he was acquitted of the crime of corruption.
In his first version, Ziad Takieddine declared before the judges that he had personally delivered five million euros in cash to Sarkozy’s entourage between the end of 2006 and 2007. Later, in several press interviews, he returned to his first testimony and even accused the investigating judge of having manipulated his statements. The prosecution suspects the three people involved of having orchestrated a campaign, using pressure tactics, to exonerate the former president. The so-called “Operation Save Sarko”. He always accused Takieddine of being manipulative.
The prosecution believes that the former president maneuvered to obtain a modification of the testimony of the main prosecution witness. Carla Bruni for having concealed all this, in particular because she was the owner of a telephone line which, according to the prosecution, Sarkozy would have used to speak with Takieddine, through the third party involved.
The Sarkozy-Bruni couple filed an appeal before the Paris Court of Appeal to obtain the annulment of the prosecutor’s request. The decision will be made by the investigating judge responsible for the case.
Sarkozy entered prison on October 21, after being found guilty of illicit association in the Libya financing affair. He appealed the sentence and, after spending less than a month in prison, he was granted parole and released a few weeks ago. During his short stay behind bars, he wrote a book, Diary of a prisonerwhich was released last week and has already sold 100,000 copies. The appeal trial will be held in early 2026.
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