Le Figaro. What is your reaction to the detention of your client, Bernard Laporte?
Me Versini-Campinchi:
A flat encephalogram.
It is a chronicle of a custody announced since February 2018. Since these searches, we knew that they would be the object of an interrogation by the financial police.
And that, as the procedure requires, it would go through police custody.
On the other hand, the timing is downright scandalous.
How do you explain it?
It is a symptom of the disconnection of certain magistrates from normal civilian life.
We can tell them this is not the right time, ask them to wait a few days for the election campaign to end, no, they do not see the subject.
It's programmed, period.
It was impossible to make the prosecution understand that after waiting two and a half years, during which nothing happened at all, we could wait two more weeks.
"READ ALSO: Bernard Laporte and the French rugby staff placed in police custody
Does this timing conceal a manipulation in view of the elections for the presidency of the FFR?
I don't believe in that stuff at all.
I am not a conspirator.
There is not this will of the vice-public prosecutor in charge of the file at the PNF (
National Financial Prosecutor's Office
).
It's just this disconnect that I just told you about.
They've programmed a process and a timeline and they're not changing it.
"
Procedures may not have been followed correctly but we are light years away from crimes
"
Master Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinch
You say there is nothing new in this matter…
There is nothing on file at all!
There are lots of little things that could, if we build up the theories, be the sign of this or that… But there is no file, no case.
Procedures may not have been followed properly, but we are light years away from crimes.
But from the moment there were searches, they had to be justified by police custody.
And ask questions to try to find out if there isn't a little conflict of interest, a little influence peddling… That's all.
This is the driftnet system.
In this type of financial case, the prosecution first found a delinquent and then began to search for the offense.
The delinquent, they designated him immediately: Bernard Laporte.
Because he is president of a sports federation, because he has a big mouth.
And Mohed Altrad is a billionaire, so he's a delinquent for them.
Only after that, we look for the offense ...
How long can this custody last?
I do not know.
It may as well go to its end, ie 48 hours.
What can be the result?
I don't know either.
The case can be closed, but that would surprise me because they don't like to close.
We can send them to court, but that seems difficult to me because there would have to be a file.
We can finally ask an examining magistrate to carry out an investigation ... which will last five years.
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