"
Mimi
" Marchand, boss of the BestImage agency, has appealed against her placement in pre-trial detention in a part of the case of suspicion of Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential election of Nicolas Sarkozy, announced Monday June 21 his lawyer Me Caroline Toby to AFP.
"
I appealed against the order of placement in pre-trial detention and made a summary release,
" said Mr. Toby.
Read also: Libyan funding: Mimi Marchand jailed after violating her judicial review
In this investigation, separate from the main part and which relates to the conditions under which the intermediary Ziad Takieddine withdrew his accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy, Michèle Marchand, whose real name is, was indicted in early June for "
witness tampering
" and “
criminal association with a view to committing an organized gang fraud
”.
While she was placed under judicial control, with prohibition of contact with several people, including Nicolas Sarkozy, a judge of freedoms and detention placed her on Friday, June 18 in the evening in pre-trial detention for non-compliance with these obligations.
"
A listening established that she had not respected her judicial control because she spoke to someone
" to whom she did not have the right to speak, a source close to the AFP told AFP on Friday. investigation.
To read also: Jean-Michel Décugis: "Mimi Marchand flirts between the official and the private"
"
Breach of professional secrecy
"
According to Me Toby, “
this decision is totally disproportionate, given the involvement (of Mimi Marchand) in this case, her age, her state of health, and the fact that this listening takes place with someone with whom she has been talking twice a day for 25 years
”, photographer Sébastien Valiela. The photographer, a figure in the paparazzi world, is the author of the BestImage photo and video report broadcast in November by
Paris Match
and
BFMTV
, in which Ziad Takieddine announced his disputed withdrawal. Sébastien Valiela was heard as a “
free suspect
” in this investigation on June 15.
Friday, June 18, he was indicted in particular for "
concealment of violation of professional secrecy
" in another judicial information, relating to the dissemination by Paris Match in February 2020 of photos of the arrest of Piotr Pavlenski, the Russian artist at the heart of the Griveaux affair.
Read also: Ziad Takieddine, an intermediary who talks too much
Sébastien Valiela is known to have taken some famous pictures, in addition to those of Ziad Takieddine recently: Mazarine Pingeot with his father François Mitterrand, published in Paris Match in 1994 or even stolen photos of the romance between François Hollande and Julie Gayet, published in January 2014 in Closer.