{"id":29082,"date":"2014-07-02T08:22:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T08:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=29082"},"modified":"2014-07-02T08:22:49","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T08:22:49","slug":"sarkozy-put-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=29082","title":{"rendered":"Sarkozy put under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under formal investigation over alleged influence peddling.<\/p>\n

He appeared before a judge in Paris late on Tuesday after 15 hours of questioning by anti-corruption police.<\/p>\n

This is thought to be the first time a former French head of state has been held in police custody.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and senior prosecutor Gilbert Azibert were also placed under formal investigation over the allegations.<\/p>\n

A second prosecutor called in for questioning, Patrick Sassoust, had not appeared before a judge as of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

When a suspect is placed under formal investigation, he or she is then examined by a judge, who determines whether there is sufficient evidence for the suspect to be charged.<\/p>\n

The step often, but not always, leads to trial. Influence-peddling can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros (\u00a3120,000; $205,000).+<\/p>\n

‘Not a lot’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Sarkozy was released from custody around midnight (22:00 GMT) after appearing in court in Paris.<\/p>\n

He had been brought to the court from the judicial police office in Nanterre, west of the French capital, where he had been interrogated.<\/p>\n

Investigations into Sarkozy<\/strong><\/p>\n

July 2014: Placed\u00a0under formal investigation<\/a>\u00a0on suspicion of peddling influence to obtain details from a magistrate about legal proceedings against him in 2013<\/p>\n

October 2013: A criminal investigation into allegations he solicited secret campaign financing in 2007 from France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt,\u00a0is dropped<\/a><\/p>\n

April 2013: Judges open an inquiry into\u00a0allegations that the Gaddafi regime helped finance his 2007 election campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

February 2014: Named as a witness in investigation into funding for Edouard Balladur’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 1995<\/p>\n

A number of other inquiries are under way into wrongdoing by senior officials during his presidency, in which he has not figured directly.<\/p>\n

\"Lawyer<\/a>
Lawyer Thierry Herzog (l) and magistrate Gilbert Azibert (r) are being investigated along with Mr Sarkozy (c)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paul-Albert Iweins, the lawyer representing Mr Herzog, said the case rested only on “phone taps… whose legal basis will be strongly contested”.<\/p>\n

“There’s not a lot in this dossier, since none of the material elements of what I’ve seen, and what we could contest, support the accusations,” he added.<\/p>\n

The inquiry arose out of a separate investigation into whether Mr Sarkozy had received illegal funding for his election campaign in 2007 from the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarkozy is hoping to challenge again for the presidency in 2017 and the inquiry is seen as a blow to his hopes of returning to office.<\/p>\n

Investigators are trying to find out whether Mr Sarkozy, 59, who was president from 2007 to 2012, had promised a prestigious role in Monaco to Mr Azibert, in exchange for information about an investigation into alleged illegal campaign funding.<\/p>\n

They are looking into claims that Mr Sarkozy was warned his phone was being bugged as part of the Gaddafi inquiry.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was given a suspended prison sentence in 2011 for embezzlement and breach of trust while he was mayor of Paris but he was never questioned in custody.<\/p>\n

Diaries<\/strong><\/p>\n

An investigation was launched in February into whether Mr Sarkozy had sought inside information about the inquiry into his 2007 election campaign funding.<\/p>\n

It is alleged that Mr Sarkozy was kept informed of proceedings against him while a decision was made over whether his work diaries – seized as part of the funding inquiry – should be kept in the hands of the justice system.<\/p>\n

The Court of Cassation, where Mr Azibert holds the post of first advocate general, ruled in March 2014 that the diaries should not be returned.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe the former president was tipped off that his phone was being bugged as part of the inquiry.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarkozy insists the allegations against him are politically motivated.<\/p>\n

But the BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris says it is clear they represent another obstacle in the way of his planned return to frontline French politics.<\/p>\n

The former president is seeking to regain the leadership of the centre-right UMP party later this year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under formal investigation over alleged influence peddling. He appeared before a judge in Paris late on Tuesday after 15 hours of questioning by anti-corruption police. This is thought to be the first time a former French head of state has been held in police custody. Mr Sarkozy’s lawyer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-29082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}