Libya affair (France)

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The Libya affair describes alleged payments by the then Libyan ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi to the conservative politician and then French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in support of his 2007 election campaign. A total of 50 million euros are said to have flowed to Sarkozy. In return, al-Gaddafi is said to have been promised military honors in Paris, good business with France and support in reintegrating into the international community. Die Zeit put forward the thesis that Sarkozy would only be 23 because of this . Became French President .

Muammar al-Gaddafi, 2009 Nicolas Sarkozy, 2007
Muammar al-Gaddafi, 2009
Nicolas Sarkozy, 2007

development

Initiation and Sarkozy's election campaign

Former campaign manager Claude Guéant, 2011

In 2005, the then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy visited Libya and spent a few hours there with Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent. There were only two translators at the meeting. Gaddafi's translator told the French judiciary that massive campaign aid for Sarkozy had already been agreed at this point. The French translator later confirmed the meeting but said nothing about its content.  

A few weeks after the meeting in Libya, the intermediary, Libyan entrepreneur Ziad Takieddine, traveled to Paris with a suitcase of money. He remained unmolested because all the French security forces knew about his mission. He got from the airport to the Ministry of the Interior and handed in the suitcase containing several million euros. He later recorded this as a video statement on the media portal Mediapart .

Sarkozy's later Minister of the Interior, Claude Guéant, is said to have put millions of euros in cash during Sarkozy's election campaign. At the same time, he is said to have bought an expensive Parisian apartment during this time. He is also said to have paid for this apartment in cash. According to French investigators, between 2003 and 2012, Guéant only withdrew a total of 800 euros from his account. Anything beyond that he always paid in cash. Guéant is said to have rented a man-high safe in a Paris bank during the Sarkozy election campaign. Gueant himself testified that he kept manuscripts of Sarkozy's speeches in it. The investigators assume that the safe contained banknotes. The organizers of Sarkozy's campaign were "flooded" with cash. Gueant is being investigated for money laundering and forgery (as of 2018).

In 2007, Sarkozy was elected French President for the first time. Sarkozy received Gaddafi shortly after taking office in Paris. After taking office, Sarkozy traveled to Libya at the end of July 2007 and agreed to deliver Libyan uranium for the French state-owned nuclear company Areva . In return, Libya is to receive French nuclear power technology. The exact content of the “Memorandum on Cooperation for the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy” remained secret.

Overthrow of al-Gaddafi and investigations

In 2011 France participated with its Opération Harmattan in the international military operation in Libya as part of a NATO mission to overthrow al-Gaddafi. In the same year, Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam asked Sarkozy "to return the money he accepted from Libya to finance his election campaign". The French head of state called the allegations "grotesque" at the time.

The Internet portal Mediapart published a Libyan secret service document in 2012, according to which al-Gaddafi had paid around 50 million to Sarkozy in the 2007 French presidential election campaign. The document with the Libyan coat of arms was classified as authentic by two French courts. It is a letter from the head of the Libyan secret service at the time to the custodian of a Libyan state fund. According to this document, there was an agreement between the two countries that Tripoli should send 50 million euros to France. Nicolas Sarkozy described the document as a forgery and denounced Mediapart for its publication. In the subsequent legal proceedings, however, experts came to the conclusion that the paper was authentic.

Later, the Franco-Lebanese businessman Siad Takieddine also testified. He stated that he had brought suitcases to Paris at least three times on behalf of the Libyan ruler. At the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007 he brought several suitcases prepared by the Libyan regime with a total of five million euros to the French interior ministry . Sarkozy was France's interior minister at the time.

According to the diaries of the former Libyan Prime Minister Schukri Ghanim , several million euros have been paid to Sarkozy. During the civil war against Gaddafi in the summer of 2011, he changed sides and joined the insurgents. He later went into exile in Austria. One day after the letter to the Libyan fund was published in French media, Ghanim was found dead in the Danube. The Austrian police rated the process as an accident in 2011. The American secret services, however, called the death "highly suspect".

Also because of the documentation from Mediapart, the Paris public prosecutor opened an investigation into the matter in April 2013.

Interrogation 2018

In March 2018, anti-corruption investigators questioned Sarkozy in Nanterre , west of Paris. In January 2018, Sarkozy's former confidante Alexandre Djouhri was arrested by police in London. The then Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux was also questioned.

Sarkozy himself said on TV channel TF1 that there was "not a document, not a photo, not an account, not a material evidence" that justified the allegations.

Reactions

Klaus Dieter Frankenberger asked in the FAZ: "Is that really conceivable? A war including regime change is being instigated in order to eliminate the main witness in a case of (illegal) party funding. The result: an entire region is sinking into chaos, state collapse, Islamist terror and refugee misery If the allegations were to be confirmed ... it would be a spectacular political scandal. Even more: It would be the starting point of an enormous international humanitarian crisis that has dragged parts of North Africa into the abyss. "Frankenberger states that yes, these connections are actually conceivable .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Annika Joeres : Nicolas Sarkozy: Did Gaddafi help him into the presidency? In: The time . March 20, 2018, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  2. ^ Sarkozy in Libya: Uranium versus Technology . In: FAZ.NET . July 26, 2007, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 9, 2018]).
  3. ↑ a b Sarkozy in the Libya affair under pressure. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018 ; accessed on March 20, 2018 .
  4. ^ Former French president Sarkozy in custody over Libya funding probe - France 24 . In: France 24 . March 20, 2018 ( france24.com [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  5. ^ France: Nicolas Sarkozy in police custody . In: The time . March 20, 2018, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Illegal campaign donations: Former French President Sarkozy in police custody . In: FAZ.NET . March 20, 2018, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Georg Blume, Christoph Sydow, Paris, Berlin: Sarkozy in custody: Gaddafi's long shadow . In: Spiegel Online . March 20, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Sarkozy in Libya affair under pressure. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018 ; accessed on March 20, 2018 .
  9. ^ French Ex-President Questioned On Claims He Took Funds From Gadhafi . In: NPR.org . ( npr.org [accessed March 20, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Sarkozy defends himself against allegations of Libya . In: FAZ.NET . March 22, 2018, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 22, 2018]).
  11. ^ Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger: Sarkozy comment: Spectacular political scandal . In: FAZ.NET . March 20, 2018, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 20, 2018]).