‘Libya funded Sarkozy 2007 poll campaign’

TUNIS (AFP) ― Moamer Kadhafi’s regime funded Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 poll campaign, lawyers for former Libyan premier Baghdadi al-Mahmudi said Thursday, as the French president dismissed it as a ploy to derail his bid for relection.

“Moamer Kadhafi, his regime and the officials who worked with him financed Sarkozy’s election campaign in 2007,” lawyer Bechir Essed told reporters in Tunis, where Mahmudi is detained, mentioning that 50 million euros ($65 million) changed hands.

Essed’s claims came after the French Mediapart website published a document on Saturday which it said showed Libya’s financing of Sarkozy’s campaign.

Sarkozy again angrily dismissed Mediapart’s document as a deliberate forgery timed to destabilize his re-election campaign and is taking legal action against the website.

“The Libyan government said it was a fake, the recipient of the wire transfer said it was fake,” Sarkozy told French broadcaster Canal Plus.

“Who could believe such nonsense?” he said, calling the accusations slander.

According to Essed, the deal was concluded by former Libyan intelligence chief Mussa Kussa on the instructions of Kadhafi and that “documents proving the transaction exist.”

Another lawyer for Mahmudi, who is facing two demands for extradition to Tripoli, confirmed the claim, adding that his client believes Sarkozy is behind his detention in Tunisia.

“My arrest and my detention in Tunisia were instigated by the French president so that the details of the financing of his 2007 campaign are not revealed,” Mahmudi said, according to his lawyer Mabrouk Kourchid.

Lawyers for Mediapart urged French prosecutors to demand access to Mahmudi from Tunisian authorities for questioning on the vote funding allegations.

Mahmudi is a “key witness” and risks an unjust trial and “quick summary execution” in Libya, lawyers Jean-Pierre Mignard and Emmanual Tordjman said, making a call against his extradition to Libya.