Sarkozy & the Gaddafi allegations.1 min read

Nicolas Sarkozy faces investigations over allegations of receiving money from Muammar Gaddafi.

Nicolas Sarkozy, former French right wing president from 2007 to 2012, was released on bail on Wednesday after two days of custody by the police.

He was questioned over allegations he received illegal funding from Libya for his electoral campaign in 2007.

The investigative website Mediapart published in 2012 a document which stated that Libya gave €50 million to Sarkozy’s electoral campaign.
Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said in 2011: “Sarkozy has to give back the money he accepted from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We financed his campaign and we have the proof.”

Denying all the allegations in 2012, the former French president, Sarkozy, said on Canal Plus television: “Who led the coalition to topple Gaddafi? It was France. I was perhaps the leader. Do you think that if Gaddafi had anything on me I would have tried to oust him?”

Later in 2016, a French-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, told Mediapart, that he was involved in the business and he personally delivered to Paris a suitcase carrying millions of euros in two and five hundred notes directed to fund Sarkozy’s campaign.

Nicolas Sarkozy was released under bail conditions on Wednesday night after denying all the allegations describing them as “crazy” and “monstrous”.