PREVIEW
Prosecutors say ex-French president got campaign funds from Tripoli before NATO bombed Libyan leader
The trial of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who may face a seven-year sentence if convicted on corruption charges, is shedding light on France’s backchannel talks with the government of ousted Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadaffi.
Financial prosecutors have accused Sarkozy of having promised to lift the arrest warrant against Gadaffi’s brother-in-law and intelligence chief Abdullah el Senoussi, in exchange for campaign finance. Senoussi was convicted in absentia and given a life sentence by a Paris court in 1999 for the bombing of UTA Flight 772, a passenger flight by French airline Union de Transports Aériens which was destroyed by a suitcase bomb in 1989.
Sarkozy protests his innocence, stating at the start of the trial ‘you’ll not find one Libyan euro, one Libyan cent in my campaign.’ He added: ‘There’s no corruption money because there was no corruption.’
Gadaffi’s son, Seif al-Islam, who harbours ambitions to become President of Libya, told Radio France Internationale in January that he was personally involved in signing off US$5 million in cash to the Sarkozy campaign ahead of 2007. The arrangement was, he said, that Sarkozy would ‘conclude agreements and carry out projects in favour of Libya.’
Whatever the nature of the discussions on campaign cash they didn’t stop Sarkozy from turning his back on Gadaffi four years later. In 2011, Sarkozy co-led the campaign with United States President Barack Obama and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron to launch a no-fly zone over Libya when Gadaffi was threatening to carpet bomb civilian areas in Benghazi, a key centre of opposition during the Arab Spring (AC Vol 52 No 7, A family at war). In March 2011, Sarkozy’s government was the first western state to recognise the National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya.
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