The former president, who has been released from custody, was questioned on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Judicial Police's headquarters in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, over allegations he accepted illicit campaign donations from late Libyan strongman Muammar Gadaffi, who was deposed and killed in a Western-led intervention in 2011. He has been a focus of the inquiry opened in 2013 by judges investigating earlier claims by late Libyan ruler Moamer Kadhafi and his son Seif al-Islam that they provided funds for Sarkozy’s election effort. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was being held in police custody on Tuesday for questioning by magistrates looking into allegations of Libyan funding for his 2007 election campaign, an official in the French judiciary said.A lawyer for Sarkozy could not be reached immediately for comment.France opened a judicial inquiry in 2013 into allegations that Sarkozy’s successful 2007 election bid benefited from illicit funds from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.A former minister and close ally of Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux, was also being questioned by police on Tuesday morning in relation to the Libya investigation, another source close to the probe said.Sarkozy, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, has always denied receiving any illicit campaign funding and has dismissed the Libyan allegations as “grotesque”.GaddafiIn January a French businessman suspected by investigators of funnelling money from Gaddafi to finance Sarkozy’s campaign was arrested in Britain and granted bail after he appeared in a London court.Sarkozy has already been ordered to stand trial in a separate matter concerning financing of his failed re-election campaign in 2012, when he was defeated by Francois Hollande.
Former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy is preliminarily charged with illegal funding of his 2007 presidential campaign, passive corruption and receiving money from Libyan embezzlement.