FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS – Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was questioned this morning as part of theinvestigation into the retraction of the intermediary Ziad Takieddinewhich had accused Nicolas Sarkozy that he financed his 2007 presidential campaign with Libyan funds and then, in 2020, he made a sensational – and suspicious – backtrack by taking back his previous declarations.
The former première dame has already been heard as a witness in June 2023, and this time she is coming interrogated with the legal status of a person involved in the facts by the investigatorsCentral office against corruption and financial and fiscal infractions (OCLCIFF) of Nanterre.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s involvement stems from “Mimi” Marchand, one of the most powerful communication women in France, friend among other things of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron. Mimi Marchand is suspected of having played a key role in the operation that led Takieddine to withdraw the charges against Sarkozyand claimed to have met with Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife in this regard.
The case exploded in November 2020, when Ziad Takieddine, Nicolas Sarkozy’s main prosecution witness since 2012, made a spectacular about-face on network TV BFM come on Paris Matchclaiming that the former head of state had not “received a cent, in cash or otherwise, for the 2007 presidential election” from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Ziad Takieddine repeated his statement two months later before investigating magistrates.
Sarkozy is suspected of having paid Takieddine to persuade him to drop the chargesand therefore indicted in this case at the beginning of October for «concealment of witness subornation» and «criminal conspiracy aimed at preparing procedural frauds in an organized gang».
The investigation would have established payments to Ziad Takieddine’s entourage in Lebanon, and also the promise – never kept – of a payment of 3-4 million euros to him directly.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy would have deleted all the messages traded on Signal with Mimi Marchand when the latter came under investigationand in October 2020 she would have intervened with one of the agents who take care of her safety to quickly get Mimi Marchand a Covid test so that he could leave for Beirut, meet Ziad Takieddine and carry out the “Save Sarko” operation.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy she has always supported in the most decisive way her husband’s total innocence in the various judicial events that concern him, including this one.
