Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who recently reconsidered his accusations against former President Nicolas Sarkozy, withdrew his appeal on Thursday against his conviction for defamation against Claude Guéant, have reported Friday, November 27, corroborating sources.
Read also: Ziad Takieddine, an intermediary who talks too much
The withdrawal of Takieddine, on the run in Lebanon since June, was announced at a hearing at the Paris court of appeal on Thursday, according to a judicial source and a source familiar with the matter.
"
After several years of lies uttered on television sets and in front of the judges, Ziad Takieddine secretly recognizes by his withdrawal that he defamed Claude Guéant and lied odiously
", reacted on his side Me Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, lawyer of Fording.
The businessman was convicted in February of defamation against the former Minister of the Interior, and was fined 8,000 euros.
Justice had also ordered him to pay 6,000 euros in damages to Claude Guéant and 6,000 euros for legal costs.
Edwy Plenel and the three journalists who signed the article for Mediapart had been released.
Spectacular about-face
In a resounding video published by Mediapart on November 15, 2016, in the midst of the campaign for the right-wing primary, the sulphurous businessman, presented as an intermediary in Franco-Libyan relations, said he had conveyed between November 2006 and early 2007 "
a total of five million euros
"in suitcases during three trips between Tripoli and Paris, to finance the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.
To read also: Affair of "tapping": Nicolas Sarkozy ready to do battle
He claimed to have handed over these funds twice to Claude Guéant, then chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy, and once to the latter while he was acting Minister of the Interior.
Takieddine's accusations are at the heart of the investigations conducted since 2013 by Parisian anti-corruption investigating judges.
In mid-October, the former head of state, already indicted in this case since March 2018 for "
concealment of embezzlement of public funds
", "
passive corruption
" and "
illegal financing of electoral campaign
", the was also for "criminal association".
On November 11, in a spectacular about-face, Takieddine, sentenced in June in France to five years in prison in the context of the Karachi affair, from Beirut withdrew his charges against Sarkozy in an interview with the weekly Paris Match and on the BFMTV channel.
In Paris Match, however, he maintained that he had given funds to Mr. Guéant, 5 million euros in cash in 2005 at Takieddine's home, intended for a training contract for Libyan personnel.
Claude Guéant denied "
categorically
" these statements.
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What do we reproach Nicolas Sarkozy for in the “
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