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Agence France-Presse quoted a Lebanese judicial source as saying that the Franco-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Taqi al-Din, was arrested, based on an Interpol warrant.
Taqi al-Din is reported to be one of the defendants in a corruption case involving Sarkozy, in which he is accused of obtaining illegal support for his election campaign from the late Libyan colonel, Muammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy became the first French president to appear in court since World War, after he was accused of trying to bribe a judge and abuse of influence.
French media quoted the prosecution team as saying: “Sarkozy offered Judge Gilbert Azibert to get a prestigious job in Monaco in exchange for classified information about an investigation into allegations that Sarkozy accepted money from L’Oréal heiress Lillian Bettencourt, for his 2007 presidential campaign, while Sarkozy denied doing anything. ” Violations in all investigations against you.
Since 2013, investigators have monitored the phone calls between Sarkozy and his lawyer during their investigation into allegations of Libyan funding in Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007, and during that time they learned that “Sarkozy and his lawyer were communicating using cell phones registered with pseudonyms “.
According to prosecutors, the wiretaps revealed that Sarkozy and Herzog had repeatedly discussed contact with Azibert, the Court of Cassation judge who is well informed of Bitencourt’s investigation.
Herzog and Azibert are on trial alongside Sarkozy on charges of corruption and abuse of influence, with the three facing up to ten years in prison and heavy fines if convicted, and Sarkozy and his party, which has represented the center-right for years, consider that the investigations against the former president are politically motivated.
Sarkozy is also accused of receiving illegal funding for his campaign in 2007 by the late Libyan colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
But Sarkozy demanded that the case be dropped, after a central defendant dropped the accusations that Sarkozy’s team received Libyan bags of money.
Sarkozy, who denies wrongdoing, faced initial charges of corruption in the case, which has been under investigation since 2013.
The investigation gained momentum when French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Taqi al-Din told the Mediapart news site in 2016 that he had delivered bags from Libya containing 5 million euros, equivalent to 6.2 million dollars in cash, to Sarkozy and your former head of office.
But what made Sarkozy come out and demand that the French judiciary drop the case is what Takieddine said in televised remarks on Wednesday.
The Lebanese businessman said: “This is not true. I did not meet Mr. Sarkozy and I did not receive any funding from me, and there was no funding for Sarkozy’s presidential campaign.”
Sarkozy previously issued a statement on social media saying: “The truth is finally emerging … He never gave me money and there was no illegal funding for my 2007 campaign.”
Sarkozy said he would ask investigators to drop the charges against him and prosecute Taqi al-Din for defamation.
Investigators are investigating allegations that the Gaddafi regime gave Sarkozy 50 million euros in total for his 2007 French campaign.
The amount would be more than double the legal funding limit for the campaign at that time, € 21 million, and would violate French rules against foreign campaign funding.
France’s financial crimes prosecutor’s office had placed former President Nicolas Sarkozy under investigation for “criminal acts” because he received funds from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to finance his election campaign.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of “forming a criminal gang” as part of the investigation into the possibility that he had obtained Libyan funds for his 2007 election campaign, the National Financial Prosecutor told AFP.
The former president will be tried for “illegal campaign financing”, a crime punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros.
He will be prosecuted for breaching the electoral spending threshold of more than 20 million euros, despite warnings from campaign accountants in March and April 2012.
Sarkozy had appealed before that he had been previously sanctioned in the acts of which the Constitutional Council accused him in 2013. At that time, the Council confirmed the refusal to certify his accounts for exceeding the spending ceiling that he was obliged to pay.
However, this case concerned only 363 thousand euros, which was made known before being exposed in the spring of 2014 to an extensive system of falsified invoices aimed at falsifying the expenses of Sarkozy’s social gatherings organized by the contact agency. “Pygmalion”.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Emmanuel Boyunca, said: “The decision is disappointing because the objections raised could have been accepted, but the Court of Cassation did not accept them and left the matter in the hands of the court to which Sarkozy will be referred.”
He continued: “We reaffirm that President Sarkozy is not concerned about the events that concern Jamaliyouns, but only about exceeding the spending limit.”
Previously, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had retired from politics since 2016, faced charges of “influencing trade” and “corruption” with a higher judge at the Court of Cassation in another case, revealed by the wiretapping he used. under the pseudonym “Paul Bismuth”.
This is the second president to be referred to the courts in a political and financial case under the Fifth Republic, after Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), who was sentenced in 2011 in the case of fictitious jobs for the mayor of Paris.
