https://arab.news/26fq9
- Both Sarkozy and his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, have been charged on suspicion of putting pressure on a witness over these allegations in what is now a new legal case
- Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012 and has been convicted twice in other cases, denies the charges
PARIS: Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, died Tuesday aged 75, two days before the verdict in the ex-head of state’s trial, his lawyer said.
Takieddine died in the morning in the Lebanese capital Beirut, his French lawyer Elize Arfi told AFP.
Takieddine, a key figure in the case, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($6 million)in cash from Qaddafi to Sarkozy and the former president’s chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy attends a ceremony in tribute to late policewoman Aurelie Fouquet, killed during a robbery attempt followed by a deadly chase in 2010, in Villiers-sur-Marne, on the outskirts of Paris, on May 20, 2025. (AFP)
But in 2020, Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, prompting accusations that Sarkozy and close allies paid the witness to change his mind, something they have always denied.
Both Sarkozy and his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, have been charged on suspicion of putting pressure on a witness over these allegations in what is now a new legal case.
In the Libya investigation, prosecutors argued that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Qaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund Sarkozy’s victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012 and has been convicted twice in other cases, denies the charges.
Prosecutors have demanded a seven-year jail term for Sarkozy when the court delivers its verdict on Thursday.
Takieddine, had himself been targeted by an arrest warrant in the Libya case and had been convicted in another graft case in France. Sarkozy had always rubbished his claims calling him a “great manipulator.”