The hearing of Nicolas Sarkozy by the judges in charge of the investigation into the suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign should continue Thursday for the third day, AFP learned from a judicial source.
Read also: Libyan funding: Nicolas Sarkozy heard by the investigating judges
Started on Tuesday, the hearing of the former head of state continued on Wednesday and has already lasted about twenty hours.
When he left the Paris court on Wednesday early evening, his lawyer, Me Thierry Herzog, declined to comment.
In this case where the examining magistrates Aude Buresi and Marc Sommerer took over from Serge Tournaire, Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted in March 2018 for
"passive corruption"
,
"concealment of embezzlement of public funds"
and
"illegal campaign financing "
.
He is also placed under judicial supervision.
During his last hearing, in June 2019, Nicolas Sarkozy had said to be
"completely innocent in this affair"
, denounced a
"conspiracy"
, then refused to answer the questions of the investigating magistrates, the time of the examination of recourse aimed at making cancel the investigation.
Since then, the magistrates have indicted on January 31 for
"criminal association"
one of his former collaborators, Thierry Gaubert: payments in cash from the Libyan regime would have passed through him.
The investigators wonder if such a transfer could have been used in fine to supply in cash the budget of the victorious campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy.
The appeals of the Sarkozy camp rejected
This interrogation comes after the rejection on September 24 by the Paris Court of Appeal of most of the appeals filed by the Sarkozy camp, which invoked nullities, against these investigations.
This chamber of the Court of Appeal, which studies appeals against investigative acts, has thus largely validated the investigations launched eight years ago in this case with multiple ramifications, allowing the judges to continue the investigation.
Nicolas Sarkozy appealed to the cassation against this decision, just like MM.
Woerth, Guéant, Djouhri, a judicial source told AFP.
Testimonies from Libyan dignitaries, notes from the Tripoli secret services, accusations of an intermediary ... In seven years of work, the magistrates gathered a sum of disturbing clues which gave substance to the thesis according to which the victorious campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy was funded by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
However, no indisputable material evidence has yet been found, even though suspicious movements of funds have led to nine indictments to date.