The investigating chamber of the Douai Court of Appeal upheld Wednesday the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, indicted in the case of Mutuelles de Bretagne, considering that public action was time-barred, a learned AFP from the Attorney General.
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The chamber ruled that in this case which earned Richard Ferrand his indictment for illegal taking of interest, the limitation period took effect no later than 2012, a decision which could pave the way for the end of the proceedings.
The lawyer of the anti-corruption association Anticor, at the origin of the complaint, Me Jérôme Karsenti, however plans to appeal to cassation after "
this extremely surprising decision
", he told AFP.
The appeal period is five days, at the end of which the general prosecutor's office, which the chamber has not followed, may also if it wishes to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
The chamber had been seized since March 2020 of a double request from Richard Ferrand, examined during a hearing on January 20, 2021, after his indictment in Lille in September 2019.
The defense of the President of the Assembly first requested the nullity of the procedure on the grounds that the Paris judicial court, seized of a complaint with constitution of civil party by the Anticor association after the classification without follow-up of a first investigation by the Brest prosecutor's office in October 2017, was not territorially competent to deal with it.
Richard Ferrand's lawyers also demanded to note the prescription of the public action, because the disputed real estate transaction - the rental by Mutuelles de Bretagne, which he managed, of commercial premises belonging to his partner - had taken place in 2011. Anticor had, however, pleaded a "
hidden offense
", starting the limitation period on the date of the revelation of the case in 2017 by the Chained Duck and not, as argued by the defense of Mr. Ferrand, when the latter left the company in 2012 before becoming a Member of Parliament.
In matters of illegal acquisition of interest, the limitation period is three years.
In these rulings on Wednesday, the investigating chamber, if it “
rejected the request for the purpose of finding incompetence
” of the Paris court, on the other hand made “the
right to the request to see the prescription of the public action for the crime of illegal taking of interest, committed in Brest from December 1, 2010 to June 18, 2012
”.
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Anticor's complaint
The investigation of the case is currently being conducted by three judges from Lille, as part of a judicial investigation opened in Paris following Anticor's complaint and then disoriented in Lille in July 2018 because a magistrate, vice-president of 'Anticor, was provisionally present in the proceedings.
"
Since the beginning in this case, I have always considered unfounded the accusations against Richard Ferrand, wrongly pursued by the sole will of an association trying to revive a procedure condemned from the start
", welcomed to AFP Me Paul-Albert Iweins, lawyer for Richard Ferrand.
