Sarkozy faces first lawsuit since immunity expired
Posted on Monday, 18 June 2012
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Former French
President Nicolas Sarkozy was hit on Monday by the first formal legal
complaint against him since his judicial immunity as head of state
expired.
The complaint came from a lawyer acting for victims of a 2002 bombing in
Karachi that investigators believe may be linked to a long-running
corruption and illegal party-financing case.
France's constitution shields presidents from testifying, being
investigated and prosecution until a month after their term is up, which
for Sarkozy was on Friday.
His immunity had
kept him from being involved in probes into a submarine sale to
Pakistan in the 1990s and, separately, into relations between him, his
party and France's wealthiest woman.
In the so-called
"Karachi Affair", judges are trying to unravel dealings by middlemen and
possible kickbacks linked to France's sale of Agosta class submarines
to Pakistan.
Investigators are looking into whether the sale was the source of
illegal party financing during the 1995 presidential campaign.
They are also
investigating whether a 2002 bomb blast in Karachi that killed 11 French
nationals was a reprisal for Paris' decision to stop paying commissions
on the sale.
A lawyer for the victims filed the complaint, accusing Sarkozy and his
aides of illegally gaining access to elements of the inquiry,
compromising investigators' independence.
The lawyer,
Olivier Morice, said an official denial by Sarkozy's office last
September that he had any involvement in the case revealed that he was
illegally privy to elements of the investigation even though he was not
part of the probe.
The presidential
palace denied at the time that it had access to documents in the case,
which was widely reported on by media and which cast a legal cloud over
Sarkozy's unsuccessful bid for a second term.
Sarkozy risks being entangled in a second, unrelated case in which
investigators are looking into whether cash withdrawals from the account
of L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt were used to finance Sarkzoy's
2007 campaign.
Sarkozy's lawyer
has handed over his 2007 diary to investigators to fight allegations
that he visited Bettencourt during the campaign, Le Journal du Dimanche
reported.
Legal sources told the weekly publication that investigators were
considering searching Sarkozy's house.
Socialist Francois Hollande defeated Sarkozy last month, promising to
boost growth, cut unemployment and rid state business of murky affairs
which have dogged it in the past under both right and left-wing
administrations.
