Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been charged with taking financial advantage of the nation’s richest woman, as part of a probe into illegal party funding that could shatter his hopes of a political comeback.
His lawyers said they would appeal against the decision to formally investigate Sarkozy over allegations he took advantage of elderly L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt when she was weakened by poor health.
He was unexpectedly summoned on Thursday to the Bordeaux offices of Jean-Michel Gentil, the judge in charge of the case, for face-to-face encounters with at least four former members of Bettencourt’s staff.
Photo: EPA
The surprise confrontation came over claims he had accepted envelopes stuffed with cash from the world’s richest woman to fund his 2007 election campaign.
Gentil was seeking to establish how many times Sarkozy had visited Bettencourt during his successful campaign.
Sarkozy, 58, has always maintained that he visited Bettencourt’s residence only once during the campaign, to meet her late husband. However, members of the multibillionaire’s staff have contradicted his version of events.
‘LEGALLY INCOHERENT’
Sarkozy’s lawyer Thierry Herzog lambasted the decision to pursue his client as “legally incoherent and unfair.” He said he would immediately initiate proceedings to have the charges dropped.
In November last year, Gentil and two other examining magistrates spent 12 hours questioning Sarkozy. They decided not to formally charge him then, but to continue investigating the allegations against him.
France’s legal system has nothing that exactly matches the charges or indictments brought in British or US courts, but an investigating judge’s decision to place someone under judicial investigation is the closest equivalent.
Bettencourt is now 90. Medical experts say her mental capacity began to deteriorate from the autumn of 2006.
The allegation is that Sarkozy obtained significant amounts of money from her, breaching electoral spending limits and taking advantage of a person weakened by ill health.
Bettencourt’s former accountant, Claire Thibout, told police in 2010 she had handed envelopes filled with cash to Bettencourt’s right-hand man, Patrice de Maistre, on the understanding it was to be passed on to Sarkozy’s campaign treasurer, Eric Woerth. Woerth has already been charged in the affair.
Investigators suspect up to 4 million euros (US$5.2 million) of Bettencourt’s cash subsequently made its way into the coffers of Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party.
Sarkozy lost immunity from prosecution when he was defeated in last year’s presidential election by Francois Hollande.
Since losing to Hollande, Sarkozy has concentrated on making money on the international conference circuit, but he has repeatedly hinted that he is considering another tilt at the presidency in 2017.
POLITICAL COMEBACK
Earlier this month, he told Valeurs Actuelles magazine that his sense of duty to his nation could see him return to the political arena.
However, since losing office he has had to contend with a string of allegations relating to his five years in power and various electoral campaigns he has been involved in.
As well as the Bettencourt case, he faces probes into alleged cronyism in the awarding of contracts for opinion polls; an illegal police investigation into journalists; and alleged kickbacks on a Pakistani arms deal used to finance the right in 1995, when Sarkozy was budget minister.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS