The indictment borrowed at times from the theatrical register. Last week, the magistrates of the general public prosecutor’s office of the Paris Court of Appeal presented to the judges their reading of “the Libyan affair”. The prosecution sought to demonstrate the coherence of a sprawling case which nonetheless remains elastic for lack of direct proof of possible Libyan financing. At first instance, the judges acquitted Nicolas Sarkozy of the main offenses of corruption, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing. On the other hand, they had sentenced him to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy, a charge that appeared late in the case and interpreted by a number of criminal lawyers as a legal lifeline.
Weakened by the court’s judgment, the public prosecutor worked to strengthen its argument on the idea that the former president was guilty, not of having “Laissez-faire”as he was initially accused of, but having been « l’instigateur » of this association of criminals which would have allowed the conclusion of a corruption pact with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. On the one hand, the organization of Libya’s return to the international scene, including the cancellation of the arrest warrant targeting one of its dignitaries; on the other, the financing of the victorious presidential campaign of 2007. The general substitute, Damien Brunet, who recites his scathing arguments with a hushed voice, forgets to specify that it was Jacques Chirac who himself had, from November 2004 – testimonies and notes attest to this – promised during a visit to Gaddafi to pardon Abdallah Senoussi, the former head of the Libyan foreign secret services, sentenced in absentia to life for the attack on the French DC-10 of UTA, on September 19 1989 in Niger. Therefore, what interest would the Libyans have in paying financial compensation to obtain what had already been promised to them at the top of the French state and guaranteed by an assumed policy of diplomatic reintegration?
And the magistrate, not without emphasis, told the court: “You will have acquired the conviction […] that all the money laundering and kickback schemes, already known in other cases, were implemented […] All these stratagems made it possible, through the creation of an association of criminals, to vitiate the financing of a supreme election of the Fifth Republic, to feed opportunistic financial interests and to reduce republican functions to the level of usurped qualities. » The verb has style. But the demonstration lacks consistency. Because the investigation did not reveal a single cent coming from Libya in the accounts of the former president or his collaborators. In its construction, the prosecution maintains that if this money has not been found, it is because it was hidden and camouflaged by the defendants, hence proof of the creation of a criminal association. Same logic with the resumption of the arguments of the first instance judges which could be summarized as follows: if Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux strive not to designate Sarkozy as the instigator of this “Corrupt agreement”it’s good because they protect him.
Dramaturgy
Wednesday, at 9:30 a.m., Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyers intend to respond, point by point, to the dramaturgy of the accusation. Certainly, the legal story is powerfully scripted, but it remains shaky in its demonstration. In short, the public prosecutor’s office does not escape the impression given of reasoning based on a prior conviction of guilt reinforced by the reorganization of the elements of the case. This was the case when the public ministry put back on the table the famous “Moussa Koussa” note, revealed by Mediapart between the two rounds of the lost presidential election of 2012. This note signed with the name of the former Libyan security chief internal, evoking an order to finance the electoral campaign to the tune of 50 million euros, continues today to fuel intense discussions within the judicial institution itself.
The prosecution considers that he is not « républicain » to call into question the dismissal order from which Mediapart benefited, accused by Nicolas Sarkozy of having produced a forgery. Except that justice has never strictly authenticated this document. In her judgment of September 25, the president of the court even considered that “The most probable is that[il] either a fake”. The national financial prosecutor’s office even excluded him from the material evidence. And so this note, which its signatory himself agreed was a « faux »returns to irrigate the arguments of the magistrates…
A contestable piece of furniture
In addition to the response to the general prosecutor’s office, Nicolas Sarkozy’s defense will address the court on Wednesday. She will ask him to confirm the acquittals obtained during the first trial and to overturn his conviction for criminal conspiracy. The lawyers will point out the weaknesses of the judgment. Starting with the reasoning of the court which, in their eyes, relied on criminal association to compensate for the absence of clearly established criminal involvement in the main offenses.
However, this offense was not created with this objective, but rather to apprehend criminal plans very early in order to avoid their commission. Furthermore, the motive put forward by the trial judges is not really convincing. The court in fact considered that the motivations for this supposed Libyan financing would have been that Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2005, had not “the absolute certainty that there would be no double candidacy within the UMP and that he would have the support of the party in 2007”. Which would have pushed him to seek alternative financing. A questionable hypothesis since Nicolas Sarkozy had been elected a few months earlier by 85% of the members at the head of the party and Dominique de Villepin, the only potential rival, did not have the capacity to compete with him.
Masters Christophe Ingrain (left) and Sébastien Schapira at the Paris courthouse, May 13. © SIPA
As for the evidence of the former president’s participation in this alleged association of criminals, they remain, after ten years of investigation, particularly tenuous, apart from meetings or interviews between his collaborators, sulphurous intermediaries and Libyan dignitaries little frequentable. Nicolas Sarkozy could not not know, the first judgment said in substance, without providing formal proof that he would have known. And that is what is at stake in this second trial. Can the court’s deep conviction prevail in the face of the lack of materiality of the evidence? On the ceiling of the first chamber of the court of appeal, where this trial is being held, majestically sits a painting by the painter Léon Bonnat, Justice illuminating the Truth and protecting Innocence against Lies and Slander.
