Bloomberg News
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was charged with influence peddling, Agence France-Presse reported, threatening to upend his political ambitions.
Television footage showed Sarkozy leaving the courthouse in Nanterre this morning after being questioned by a special team of anti-corruption magistrates. The charge follows 15 hours of questioning centered on whether some judges were keeping Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog informed about the state of play of probes into the former president's campaign financing.
Calls to French prosecutors' offices and to Sarkozy's spokeswoman went unanswered. Herzog was detained this week as part of the same probe. His office didn't respond to calls.
'I believe in the innocence of Nicolas Sarkozy,' Jerome Chartier, a lawmaker in Sarkozy's UMP party, said on the i-tele TV channel. Chartier said he doesn't want Sarkozy to lead the party into the next election.
Paris judges are working on three cases involving the former president. They're probing whether his campaign got illegal political funding from Libya's former leader Muammar Qaddafi; the circumstances surrounding money Sarkozy is alleged to have received from L'Oreal SA heiress Liliane Bettencourt; and his role in former Finance Minister Christine Lagarde's decision on an arbitration settlement with French businessman Bernard Tapie.
It was the telephone tapping used as part of the Qaddafi probe that led to the influence-peddling investigation, Le Monde has reported.
After initially saying he'd quit politics following his loss to Francois Hollande in the presidential election of May 2012, Sarkozy has made trips across France since the start of this year, and even had a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hinting at his intention to run for office in 2017.
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Deen in Paris at markdeen@bloomberg.net; Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net Vidya Root, Alan Crawford
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