PARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy told magistrates who put him under formal investigation on Wednesday that accusations that he got illicit Libyan funding for his 2007 election campaign were lies that were making his life "hell", Le Figaro newspaper said. The judicial inquiry began in 2013 after the French news website Mediapart published assertions by a Franco-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, that he had transferred 5 million euros ($6 million) from Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi to Sarkozy’s campaign chief. He said he was "living the hell of this slander" since 2011 and denounced the accusations as lies, according to a text of the statement published by the newspaper.
In a statement to French investigating magistrates, ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy refutes corruption charges relating to alleged receipt of funding from the then President of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2007.