Attack to better defend.
For an afternoon, Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer, whose trial for corruption and influence peddling really opened on Monday, turned into a prosecutor by carrying out the trial… of the trial.
By shelling the investigation which earned the former guest of the Elysee Palace to appear, alongside his friend and lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
Denouncing "serious and repeated violations of the rights of the defense" and a case in which "the fundamental principles of our criminal procedure have been violated and trampled on", Me Jacqueline Laffont asked for the outright cancellation of the procedure.
Unsurprisingly, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) requested the rejection of these conclusions of nullity, deeming them inadmissible and detecting in the passage the hints of conspiracy.
In this so-called wiretapping affair, there is actually not one, but two investigations.
In February 2014, while intercepting the conversations of Nicolas Sarkozy as part of the investigations into the supposed Libyan financing of his 2007 campaign, the police discovered that the former president and Thierry Herzog were conversing on a secret line taken in the name of Paul Bismuth.
They suspect the two men of wanting to influence an ongoing case before the Court of Cassation, with the help of Gilbert Azibert who sits there.
A judicial investigation, that is to say an investigation entrusted to investigating judges, is opened.
But, very quickly, the police noticed a sudden change of tone in their conversations.
They are convinced that those concerned have been informed that the Bismuth lines have been burnt.
By who?
This is precisely the subject of this second investigation.
"But what is the PNF doing?"
asks Me Laffont.
Instead of transmitting these additional elements to the judges, he decides to open a
parallel
preliminary investigation (
Editor's note: that is to say, which remains in the hands of the public prosecutor
).
This original choice to split the two procedures is unacceptable and unjustifiable.
"
PODCAST. Libya, the 2007 presidential election… What Nicolas Sarkozy said to the judges for 40 hours
In the eyes of the defense, this dissociation is perverse.
"The process is abject, denounces Me Laffont who speaks of trash files.
We seize the same investigators, the same magistrates but we hide the information from the defense.
The results are only revealed if they serve the accusation but remain hidden if they serve it.
"In fact, Nicolas Sarko's defense will have to wait until February 2020 to know the outcome of this investigation: classification without follow-up for" insufficiently characterized offense ".
The document is projected on the screen of the room.
On his chair, Nicolas Sarkozy stamps his feet.
"I do not recognize any of these infamies with which I have been pursued for two years," he had dropped at the beginning of the hearing in a formula of which he has the secret.
For Me Laffont, this classification is crucial.
Because, she develops, the accusation would be based on the premise that Nicolas Sarkozy and Thierry Herzog were warned by a mole.
And that, starting from there, the conversations in which the former president explains to his friend that he ultimately did not intercede in favor of Gilbert Azibert would be a sham.
"With the classification, it is a pillar of the instruction which collapses", asserts the lawyer.
"There we almost reach the bottom"
Nicolas Sarkozy's defense recalls that it has nevertheless tried on numerous occasions - 13 in total - to communicate the content of this hidden preliminary investigation.
"We came up against a front of refusal, with false motivations", criticizes Jacqueline Laffont, in verve.
Among the examples, she cites this letter which was sent to her in December 2016 by Éliane Houlette, the former head of the PNF: "I also observe that the preliminary investigation on which you are requesting information does not target your client" , writes the now retired magistrate.
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"There, we almost reach the bottom," laments the lawyer.
The investigation focuses on facts of breach of professional secrecy and concealment, and who are the alleged receivers?
She even shows the cover of this famous investigation in court, on which the name of Nicolas Sarkozy appears in capital letters.
Which ostensibly nods his head, with satisfaction but no doubt also with anger.
Jacqueline Laffont finally points out that this investigation was the subject of a closing report in 2016 and then of a "purely artificial revival".
“Between March 2016 and March 2019, there was not the slightest beginning of an investigation”, enraged the lawyer who saw it as a deliberate maneuver by the prosecution to justify the absence of transmission and thus deprive her client of '' have access to exculpatory material, which is a violation of the right to a fair trial.
"Do you think that if the PNF had found the source which had informed Thierry Herzog, he would not have hastened to communicate these elements to the investigation?
she asks falsely naive.
He was a winner in both cases.
"
"Unacceptable attack"
The two PNF representatives at the hearing briefly defended the methods of their institution, vilified for more than five hours.
"Where the General Inspectorate of Justice had seen a strategy, the defense prefers the term stratagem," observes Jean-Luc Blachon.
But what is described is something like a plot that would involve the PNF and all his magistrates who intervened in the case, the investigating judges and the investigating services.
Certainly, the term is not used, perhaps out of modesty, but its springs are very present.
"" Unacceptable attack, "replied Me Hervé Temime, one of Thierry Herzog's lawyers.
On the merits, the prosecution defends the principle of the advisability of prosecution and its choice to have had recourse to a parallel investigation.
"No text required the public prosecutor to communicate this investigation", evacuates Jean-Luc Blanchon, who concludes that the criticisms of the defense have no legal consequences.
"There are a lot of questions to which you have not answered", regrets Me Laffont.
The court will have to answer a first question by deciding what to do with these preliminary conclusions.
What he will do this Tuesday afternoon when the debate resumes.
If the incident is joined to the merits, then the trial can really start.
