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Former prosecutor who sued François Fillon casts doubt

2020-06-18T17:29:34.852Z


A few days before the verdict in this case, Éliane Houlette, former boss of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, declares that she was the victim of hierarchical pressure.


Of "many, many requests" the Prosecutor General who interfered "daily in public action" . They were "of an astounding degree of precision [...] I felt them as a huge pressure" . Rarely has an ex-high magistrate displayed his feelings as much as Éliane Houlette, heard on June 10 by the commission of inquiry of the National Assembly devoted to "obstacles to the independence of the judiciary". She evoked the way in which she lived the affair which precipitated the fall of François Fillon, during the last presidential election. It was she, as national financial prosecutor, from 2014 to 2019, who launched the prosecution of the former candidate of the right.

Read also: The relatives of François Fillon are indignant at the revelations of the former prosecutor

His hearing before the parliamentarians gives off a scent of settling of scores. The former patron of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), now retired, is responsible for the then General Prosecutor's Office, held by Catherine Champrenault, a close friend of Ségolène Royal, whose appointment was personally overseen by François Hollande. The creation of the PNF in 2014, at the turn of the Cahuzac affair, had been perceived by some experts as the establishment of a judicial war machine. The strange confidences of ex-prosecutor Houlette suggest that there was no need for a "black cabinet". Hearing it, the power knew in real time and decided everything.

"Very close control"

Who was the Minister of Justice? The socialist Jean-Jacques Urvoas, condemned since by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), in another case, where his appetite for the investigations in progress led him to imprudently transmit information to a friendly deputy. The director of Criminal Affairs and Pardons (DACG) at the time, key position, was Robert Gelli, who did his military service with Hollande, said not to be his friend, and has just been bombed Minister of Justice of Monaco .

One can only ask questions. It's a very tight control ...

Éliane Houlette, former patron of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office

It is therefore above all "the pressure from the public prosecutor's office" that marked Éliane Houlette during the Fillon affair. He wanted "feedback" as soon as possible on the latest investigative acts, requests that were sometimes addressed to him for "the acts of the previous day" , and that she had to summarize "before 11 am the next day" .

"Requests for clarification, for a general chronology - all this two or three days apart -, requests for information on the hearings, requests for notes from counsel for the defendants ... The reports that I sent, I reread them (…). There are reports which were detailed, which made ten pages, precise, clear, here, ” maintained the ex-magistrate before the deputies questioned. And to add: “We can only ask questions. It is very close control… ”.

A bombshell

What did she not publicly protest at the time? Because finally, what she says leaves almost speechless. She speaks of a meeting during which she was asked to open a judicial investigation against François Fillon, while the investigations had taken place until then as part of a preliminary investigation. On February 15, 2017, in Paris, she complied with the invitation. “I was summoned to the public prosecutor's office - I went there with three of my colleagues, moreover - because the procedural choice that I had adopted was not suitable. I was asked to change the procedural path, that is to say, to open a judicial inquiry. I received a dispatch from the Attorney General to that effect, ” she said to the deputies. She admits having finally been herself convinced that it was necessary to open a judicial investigation, which she will do on February 24, 2017. Then a new disagreement will break out as to the terms of the press release. They pointed out François Fillon almost as guilty.

Read also: The flamboyant pleadings of François Fillon's lawyer

The public prosecutor's office takes it for its rank: "I did not have the feeling that we were making common cause" , she asserts. Did we have the right to force her hand like this? For its part, does it not ignore that it is making these statements a few days before the verdict which, in principle, is to fall on June 29 in the Fillon affair? It is in any case to throw a sacred paving stone in the pond. Last touch on the board: Éliane Houlette must herself answer for possible indiscretions in another case which justified the recent opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office for "violation of the secrecy of the investigation".

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-06-18

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