Ziad Takieddine retraction: two new people in custody

New police custody in Ziad Takieddine's retraction file.

Two people were arrested Monday morning as part of the investigation for "bribery and criminal association with a view to committing a scam" linked to the interview granted by the intermediary to the magazine Paris Match in November 2020, as confirmed by national financial prosecutor's office (PNF) in Parisien.

According to our information, they are relatives of Noël Dubus, one of the central figures of the case, a sign that the noose could tighten around this man, already convicted of fraud and who had also moved to Beirut at the time of the interview.

He would have sent 8,000 euros to the attention of Ziad Takieddine.

Incarceration of Pierre Reynaud

The resounding interview with the latter, a brief extract of which was also broadcast on BFMTV, was granted to a journalist from Paris Match, who had traveled to Lebanon with a photographer from the Bestimage agency, accompanied by his boss Michèle Trader. During this interview, the sulphurous intermediary withdrew his accusations against the former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he had previously accused of having benefited from Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential campaign. Two months later, questioned in Beirut by the judges in charge of the Libyan case, the same Takieddine, known for his versatility, declared that he did not "confirm the words of the interview".

The magistrates suspect this ephemeral retraction of having been bought or at least remotely controlled fraudulently, as the newspaper Liberation and the Mediapart site had revealed upstream.

Suspicious fund movements were noted, evoking possible negotiations on the sidelines of the interview.

As we revealed on Monday, the case also experienced a new twist with the imprisonment of businessman Pierre Reynaud in this case.

This 65-year-old man was indicted for extortion a fortnight ago, but initially left free under judicial supervision by a judge of freedoms and detention (JLD), after having acquitted himself of '' a deposit of 150,000 euros.