Two radically opposed styles but to convey the same message.
The southern flair and the witticisms of one, the grating irony and eloquence of the other.
Dominique Allegrini first, the lawyer of the former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert, then Hervé Temime, the lawyer of his colleague Thierry Herzog, pounded relentlessly this Thursday the investigation which earned their two clients to appear before the criminal court for corruption and influence peddling, alongside Nicolas Sarkozy.
The former head of state and his “brother” are suspected of having used the former Advocate General at the Court of Cassation to influence a decision.
The two penalists especially exhausted the indictment of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) which, Tuesday, had demanded 4 years in prison including 2 suspended sentences against the three men who will be set on March 1, date of deliberation.
With the same leitmotif: the absence, in their eyes, of evidence provided by the prosecution.
The day before, Me Jacqueline Laffont, the lawyer of the former President of the Republic, had denounced "a desert of evidence".
The three defendants plead the release.
For Me Allegrini, the prosecution actually required "three death sentences": "A social death penalty for Gilbert Azibert, a professional death penalty for Thierry Herzog (
Editor's note: the prosecution also demanded a 5-year ban on exercise against the famous penalist
) and a political death penalty for Nicolas Sarkozy ”.
The "Azibert virus"
Then the lawyer denounces "the confinement" which justice would have shown in the investigation of this Bismuth case, named after the occult telephone lines used by Nicolas Sarkozy and Thierry Herzog to converse, they believed, safe from the police ears.
“When there is nothing, we say that it is something;
when we have doubts, we say that they are certainties, sneers the lawyer.
But there was a point when we could have shut down the machine.
Unfortunately, the confinement continued, like that of a mad scientist in his laboratory, to give birth to this judicial Frankenstein.
A hybrid and demonic creature, according to him, of investigating judges, the PNF and investigators from the central office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal offenses (OCLCIFF).
The lawyer is launched and multiplies the punchlines.
Like a good Marseillais, he invites Professor Didier Raoult to the party and has fun with the “Azibert virus” which would have contaminated the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation to make it a cluster.
Then he lists all the witnesses who assured that his client had not applied for Monaco, while the prosecution is based on the promise of help from Nicolas Sarkozy for the granting of this honorary post to the magistrate keen on criminal procedure , renamed "Professor Tournesol of law" by his lawyer.
Dominique Allegrini finally mocks the conclusions of the PNF, which are based more on deductions and interpretation of tapping than on tangible evidence: "1 doubt + 1 doubt + 1 doubt does not create several doubts nor a big doubt but a bundle of clues.
Between that and the Bateaux-Mouches, I'm happy to have come to Paris ”.
The room, once again filled with lawyers, laughs.
“Inordinate and humiliating” demands for punishment
Hervé Temime is as angry as his colleague but he is not in the mood for fun.
He attacks the requisitions ball in the head.
Denounces "an accusation that has collapsed".
Castigates “a ruthless indictment, deceptively rigorous, […] totally disconnected from the audience, from reality, from life and deeply unfair.
»Loses his temper against" excessive and humiliating "demands for punishment.
"In five hours, you have not once uttered the word evidence when it is the only one that should have guided your completely non-existent demonstration," he says, staring at the two prosecutors.
In a very long demonstration, the tenor of the courts is once again struggling to challenge the legality of the transcription of the wiretaps between Nicolas Sarkozy and Thierry Herzog who make up the whole body - and the salt - of this file.
On the first day of the trial, the defense unanimously asked the court to dismiss them.
"There is no defense without professional secrecy," insists Hervé Temime, defending the sacredness of conversations between a lawyer and his client.
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Then, without sparing his efforts, by taking up many aspects of the procedure, he quipped on "the sidereal void" of accusations of corruption and influence peddling.
"There is not the slightest beginning of proof of the existence of a pact," the penalist fulminates.
The PNF had considered that the conclusion of this pact was "something irreducible".
The three defendants will know the court's decision on March 1.
Two weeks later, Nicolas Sarkozy will be entitled to a new visit to a correctional chamber, in the Bygmalion case this time where he will be tried for illegal campaign financing.
“This affair has been a way of the cross for me,” said the former president when he spoke last.
But if this was the price to pay for the truth to progress, I am ready to accept it […].
I still have confidence in the justice of our country.
"