Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy charged with corruption over suspected Gaddafi financing
Sarkozy is accused of illegally funding his 2007 election campaign with cash from the late Libyan dictator, who reportedly agreed to pay more than US$60 million
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy blasted what he said was a lack of evidence for the corruption charges against him over claims the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi funded his 2007 election campaign, in his court statement published on Thursday.
The morning after he was charged in France’s most explosive political scandals in decades, the 63-year-old right-winger said in the statement published by the Figaro newspaper that he had been in “living hell” since the allegations emerged in 2011.
Demanding he be treated as a witness rather than a suspect, he urged magistrates to consider “the violence of the injustice” if it was proved, as he claims, that the accusations are a “manipulation by the dictator Gaddafi or his gang”.
“In the 24 hours of my detention I have tried with all my might to show that the serious corroborating evidence required to charge someone did not exist,” Sarkozy said. “I stand accused without any tangible evidence through comments made by Mr Gaddafi, his son, his nephew, his cousin, his spokesman, his former prime minister.”
The allegations that Sarkozy took money from Gaddafi – whom he helped to topple in 2011 – are the most serious out of myriad investigations dogging him since he left office in 2012.