Gaddafi gave Sarkozy $53m to fund his bid for president

A French-Lebanese businessman has said that former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi gave over $53 million to fund Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 political campaign for the French presidency.

Ziad Takieddin, a wealthy businessman who was close to Gaddafi, is said to have introduced Sarkozy to Gaddafi upon which cases full of cash were passed on to Sarkozy’s Chief of Staff, Claude Guéant, according to evidence collected by the investigative news website Mediapart.

“I have discovered things that should no longer be hidden. I wish to denounce the mafia state in which we are currently living”, Takieddine told the website.

According to Takieddine he transported Libyan cash to the French interior ministry in Paris between November 2006 and January 2007, four months before Sarkozy was elected president.

Sarkozy and Guéant have repeatedly denied the claims with Guéant telling Mediapart: “I have never received cash from the Libyan government or any other for that matter. Nor did I see any handed over. To claim otherwise is false and defamatory.”

Guéant also claimed the documents obtained by Mediapart were fabricated.

Though the claims first surfaced five years ago, Takieddine’s recent revelations will come as a blow to Sarkozy who is currently seeking the presidential nomination of the Les Républicains party. The first round of the party primaries will be held on Sunday.

French courts initially opened an inquiry into the suspected illegal financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign back in 2013 with charges for “active and passive corruption, misuse of power, forgery, abuse of public money, money laundering, and complicity in and concealment of these offences.”

However charges were dropped and no convictions made.

In an interview to Euronews in 2011, Gaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi said: “Sarkozy has to give back the money he accepted from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We financed his campaign and we have the proof.”