The former French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been charged with pressuring a witness who accused ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy of receiving illegal campaign financing from Libya. Bruni-Sarkozy, a former supermodel, has been placed on bail with restrictions on contacting individuals involved in the proceedings except for her husband. The charges against her include witness tampering and attempting to commit fraud by deceiving magistrates investigating her husband’s alleged receipt of illegal funds during his 2007 presidential election campaign.
The witness central to the accusations against Sarkozy is Ziad Takieddine, who is linked to claims that Sarkozy received millions in illegal payments from the regime of late Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. Despite Sarkozy’s denial of any wrongdoing, he has already been convicted in two other cases. In a previous ruling, an appeals court in Paris upheld a guilty verdict against Sarkozy for illegal campaign financing in his unsuccessful 2012 re-election bid, resulting in a one-year prison sentence with six months suspended.
Sarkozy’s legal team has appealed to France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, to challenge the ruling. Due to the pending appeal, Sarkozy cannot be imprisoned according to French law. The former president, who retired from active politics in 2017, faced previous legal troubles and was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling in a separate case in 2021. Despite his past convictions, Sarkozy continues to assert his innocence in all legal matters and maintains his stance against the allegations of wrongdoing.
