Two people have been indicted for "
complicity in witness tampering
" in the section on the retraction of Ziad Takieddine of the file of suspicion of Libyan financing of the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, said Thursday a judicial source to the AFP.
They were also indicted for "
criminal association
" and placed under judicial supervision.
Le Parisien newspaper said on Tuesday that two people close to Noël Dubus, a man already convicted of fraud, had been taken into police custody.
Read alsoLibyan funding: Mimi Marchand presented to justice
Noël Dubus is indicted in the judicial investigation opened in early June on the conditions under which a resounding interview with Ziad Takieddine was organized in November 2020.
In this interview with Paris Match and BFMTV, the Franco-Lebanese businessman, who for years accused Nicolas Sarkozy of having received money from the Libyan regime to finance his presidential campaign in 2007, cleared the former head of state.
The magistrates suspect that this retraction could have been bought or at least directed in a fraudulent way.
"
A screenwriter friend
"
These new indictments bring the number of people prosecuted in this case to at least seven. Among them are the boss of the paparazzi agency BestImage Mimi Marchand or the publicist Arnaud de la Villesbrunne, indicted for "
witness bribery and criminal association with a view to committing an organized gang fraud
". According to two sources close to the case, one of the two people indicted Wednesday would be Thomas N., presented by Noël Dubus during an interrogation in June as "
a screenwriter friend
" who put him in contact with Mimi Marchand. The latter would have liked to see him when she learned that he was "
very close to Takieddine
".
Read alsoSuspected Libyan funding: Mimi Marchand indicted for "witness tampering" and "criminal association"
In front of the police, Mimi Marchand identified Thomas N. as the one who sent him on his phone in mid-November the draft of an “
interpellative summons
” from Ziad Takieddine, a few hours before a meeting between them.
This document, supposed to confirm the declarations of the businessman clearing Nicolas Sarkozy and implicating the judges in charge of the Libyan financing file, had been sent in a finalized version, signed from Beirut, to them shortly before Christmas.
