PARIS: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants authorities to drop an investigation into alleged illegal financing of his 2007 campaign by the regime of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, after a central accuser backtracked on claims that he had handed Sarkozy’s team suitcases of Libyan cash.
Sarkozy, who denies wrongdoing, has facecd preliminary corruption charges in the case, under investigation since 2013.
The probe gained traction when French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told news site Mediapart in 2016 that he had delivered suitcases from Libya containing €5 million ($6.2 million) in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff.
The ex-president jumped on the first reports from BFM TV and Paris Match saying: “The truth is out at last.”
On Wednesday, Takieddine reversed course, telling BFM television from Lebanon: “It’s not true. Mr. Sarkozy did not receive financing ... there was no financing of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign.”
Sarkozy released a statement late Wednesday on social networks saying: “The truth is emerging at last ... he never gave me money, there was never illegal financing of my 2007 campaign.”
Sarkozy said he would ask investigators to drop the charges against him, and sue Takieddine for defamation.
“For seven-and-a-half years, the investigation has not discovered the slightest proof of any illegal financing whatsoever,” he posted on Facebook.
“The chief accuser recognizes his lies,” Sarkozy added. “He never gave me money, there was never illegal financing of my campaign in 2007.”
Investigators are examining claims that Qaddafi’s regime secretly gave Sarkozy €50 million overall for his winning 2007 French campaign. The sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit at the time, €21 million, and would violate French rules against foreign campaign financing.
Sarkozy’s relationship with Qaddafi was complicated. In 2007, Sarkozy welcomed Qaddafi to France with high honors. Sarkozy then put France at the forefront of NATO-led airstrikes that helped rebel fighters topple Qaddafi’s regime in 2011.
Sarkozy and Takieddine have faced other legal troubles in France. The former president faces trial later this month in an unrelated corruption case.
Takieddine, who is in Beirut on the run from French justice in another shady financing affair, put out a video saying the instructing magistrate had twisted his words.
“I am saying loud and clear the magistrate ... really wanted to turn it the way he wanted and make me say things which are totally contradictory to what I said,” the 70-year-old said.
“There was no financing of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign,” he added.
Sarkozy announced he would instruct his lawyers to seek to halt the case against him and sue Takieddine for defamation.
French prosecutors last month said they had charged Sarkozy for “membership in a criminal conspiracy” after more than 40 hours of questioning over four days, prosecutors told AFP.
It adds to charges already filed in 2018 of “accepting bribes,” “benefitting from embezzled public funds” and “illegal campaign financing.”
The October charge was seen to increase the chance of a trial for Sarkozy, who was already poised to become the first former French president in the dock on corruption charges.
Prosecutors suspected that Sarkozy and his associates received tens of millions of euros from Qaddafi’s regime to help finance his election bid.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has always denied wrongdoing.
He has been under pressure since 2012, when the investigative website Mediapart published a document purporting to show that Qaddafi agreed to give Sarkozy up to €50 million ($59 million at current rates).
But four years later, in 2011, Sarkozy was a driving force behind the international military invention that drove Qaddafi from power.
A trained lawyer, Sarkozy has fought the claims of Libya cash by citing presidential immunity, and arguing there is no legal basis in France for prosecuting someone for misusing funds from a foreign country.
He has faced a litany of legal woes since leaving office, including charges relating to fake invoices orchestrated by executives of the Bygmalion public relations firm to mask overspending on his failed 2012 re-election campaign.
In a third case, Sarkozy faces charges of trying to obtain classified information from a judge on an inquiry into claims that he accepted illicit payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy was cleared over the Bettencourt allegations in 2013.
Sarkozy seeks closure of Libyan corruption case as witness drops claim
https://arab.news/2qmkd
Sarkozy seeks closure of Libyan corruption case as witness drops claim
UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent
- Both climbers used Southeast Ridge route to summit
- They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients
KATMANDU: A British climber and a Nepali guide have broken their own records for most climbs of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, hiking officials said on Sunday.
Rakesh Gurung, director of Nepal’s Department of Tourism, said Britain’s Kenton Cool, 50, and Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa, 54, climbed the 8,849-meter (29,032 foot) peak for the 18th and 29th time, respectively.
They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients.
“He just keeps going and going... amazing guy!” Garrett Madison of the US-based expedition organizing company Madison Mountaineering said of the Nepali climber. Madison had teamed up with Kami Rita to climb the summits of Everest, Lhotse, and K2 in 2014.
K2, located in Pakistan, is the world’s second-highest mountain and Lhotse in Nepal is the fourth-tallest.
Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures called Cool’s feat remarkable.
“He is a fundamental part of the Everest guiding industry. Kenton Cool is an institution,” Furtenbach, who is leading an expedition from the Chinese side of Everest, told Reuters.
Both climbers used the Southeast Ridge route to the summit.
Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the Everest summit.
Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994 and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.
He climbed the mountain twice last year.
Mountain climbing is a major tourism activity and a source of income as well as employment for Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest peaks, including Everest.
Nepal has issued 414 permits, each costing $11,000 to climbers for the climbing season that ends this month.
Banning UK arms exports to Israel would strengthen Hamas, UK’s Cameron says
- Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians
LONDON: Stopping British arms sales to Israel if it launches a ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would strengthen Hamas, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Sunday.
Israel ordered Palestinians to evacuate more of the southern city on Saturday in an indication it was pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack, despite US President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold the supply of some weapons if it did so.
Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the southern border city.
However, Britain was in a “completely different position” to the United States in terms of providing arms to Israel, he said, noting that the less than 1 percent of Israel’s weapons that came from Britain were already controlled by a strict licensing system.
“We could, if we chose to, make a sort of political message and say we are going to take that political step,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
“The last time I was urged to do that (...), just a few days later there was a brutal attack by Iran on Israel, including 140 cruise missiles,” he added.
Cameron said the “better answer” would be for Hamas, which controls Gaza, to accept a hostage deal.
“Just to simply announce today we’re going to change our whole approach to arms exports rather than go through our careful process, it would strengthen Hamas, it would make a hostage deal less likely, I don’t think it would be the right approach,” he said.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed close to 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
‘Completely helpless’: Afghanistan’s north struggles to get aid after deadly floods
- Thousands of houses and livestock were also wiped out by the flash floods
- Afghanistan is prone to natural disasters, considered vulnerable to climate change
KABUL: Survivors of the deadly flash floods that ripped through northern Afghanistan were still struggling without basic aid on Sunday, as the official death toll rose to over 300.
Heavy rains on Friday triggered flash floods across at least seven provinces, including Baghlan, Ghor, Badakhshan and Takhar, injuring more than 1,600 people and destroyed about 2,600 houses, according to the latest data from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees.
Many people remain missing and livestock were wiped out as survivors picked through muddy, debris-littered streets and damaged buildings over the weekend, while authorities and humanitarian agencies deployed aid and rescue workers.
“All available resources are being mobilized, and relevant ministries and agencies are actively engaged in delivering urgent aid,” Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for economic affairs, told survivors in Baghlan province on Sunday, as he reassured “unwavering support” from the Taliban-led government “until their lives are restored to normalcy.”
But some people in the province, which bore the brunt of the deluges, said that aid has yet to reach them.
“We haven’t received any support from the government or aid organizations yet. Everyone comes and asks us questions, then they go back,” Ghulam Nabi, who is from the province’s Burka district, told Arab News in a phone interview.
“We lost our houses and our lives. Everything we had is under mud now. The agriculture land and livestock, our only source of livelihood, are also completely destroyed. We don’t have the basic means to cook food for ourselves.”
Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods had left scores of people dead and destroyed farmlands across Afghanistan, a country where 80 percent of its more than 41 million people depend on agriculture to survive.
The South Asian nation is prone to natural disasters and is considered by the UN to be one of countries most vulnerable to climate change.
Aid group Save the Children said about 600,000 people, half of them children, live in the five districts in Baghlan that have been severely impacted by the recent floods.
“Lives and livelihoods have been washed away. The flash floods tore through villages, sweeping away homes and killing livestock. Children have lost everything,” Arshad Malik, the group’s country director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
Most of the affected areas are still cut off on Sunday, inaccessible by trucks as roads and bridges were damaged by the floods, which also impacted other public infrastructure.
People were struggling to access essential health services, the World Health Organization said in a statement, as “several health facilities remain non-operational.”
Abdul Fatah Jawad, director of Ehsas Welfare and Social Services Organization, said that many of the flood survivors were still in shock.
“People are so scared and traumatized. Most houses that survived the flooding are emptied as people fear more floods. Families took refuge in school yards and deserted areas far from residential houses,” Jawad told Arab News.
He said families are in urgent need of basic goods, such as food, drinking water, medicine, tents, blankets and shelter. Since Saturday, his organization has managed to deliver cooked food for hundreds of families.
“People, particularly children, need to eat something … They also need cash to rebuild their houses and their businesses,” he said. “Some families lost everything — house, land, livestock, business. They are completely helpless.”
Indonesia welcomes expanded Makkah Route access as pilgrims start departing for Hajj
- Indonesia will be sending 241,000 pilgrims this pilgrimage season
- The Makkah Route initiative is available in 3 Indonesian cities
JAKARTA: Indonesia on Sunday welcomed the expansion of the Makkah Route initiative to three airports, as the first batch of the country’s largest Hajj contingent to date departed for Saudi Arabia.
The world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation will be sending 241,000 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year for the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Although the Hajj this year is expected to start on June 14 and end on June 19, many pilgrims depart early to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill their religious duty.
As Indonesia’s first Hajj flight carrying nearly 400 pilgrims departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the early hours of Sunday, Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said he was grateful to the Saudi leadership for adding the Makkah Route initiative in other Indonesian cities.
“On behalf of the Indonesian government, I thank the Saudi government for providing additional fast-track facilities, other than Jakarta, it is now available in Solo and Surabaya,” Qoumas said after he sent off the first group in the Indonesian capital.
“Hopefully this will give ease, benefit, and a smooth journey for all Indonesian pilgrims.”
Launched in 2019, the Kingdom’s Makkah Route initiative is a pre-travel program created to help pilgrims meet all the visa, customs and health requirements at the airport of origin, and save them long hours of waiting before and upon arrival in Saudi Arabia.
This year, the initiative will benefit more than 128,000 Indonesian pilgrims who will leave from the three selected cities.
“We saw the fast-track service at the airport. It doesn’t take any longer than two minutes. It’s very fast, very helpful for the pilgrims. When they arrive, they don’t have to go through any other immigration process, they can just hop on the bus and begin their worship in the holy land,” Qoumas said.
This year, Saudi Arabia increased Indonesia’s quota of pilgrims by 20,000, from 221,000 last year, making it the biggest in the Southeast Asian nation’s history.
The highest quota in previous years came before the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2019, when the Kingdom approved a quota of 231,000 pilgrims for Indonesia.
The additional quota will help shorten the wait for some pilgrims by a few years, which is especially important for elderly pilgrims. Many Indonesians have to wait up to 45 years for their turn, according to official estimates.
Ace Hasan Syadzili, a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, was also present to see off the first batch of pilgrims on Sunday, commended the Makkah Route initiative.
“This is certainly helpful. Looking at the previous years, without fast track the immigration can take between two to five hours. But this fast track will speed up services for Hajj pilgrims,” Syadzili said.
“We will continue to oversee and supervise the Hajj management process this year so that it is in line with the people’s expectations.”
US Marine pilot arrested in Australia worked with Chinese hacker, lawyer says
- Daniel Duggan, a naturalized Australian citizen, fears requests by Western intelligence agencies for sensitive information were putting his family at risk
SYDNEY: A former US Marine pilot fighting extradition from Australia on US charges of training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers, unknowingly worked with a Chinese hacker, his lawyer said.
Daniel Duggan, 55, a naturalized Australian citizen, feared requests by Western intelligence agencies for sensitive information were putting his family at risk, the lawyer said in a legal filing seen by Reuters.
The lawyer’s filing supports Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin.
Duggan denies the allegations that he broke US arms control laws. He has been in an Australian maximum security prison since his 2022 arrest after returning from six years working in Beijing.
US authorities found correspondence with Duggan on electronic devices seized from Su Bin, Duggan’s lawyer Bernard Collaery said in the March submission to Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who will decide whether to surrender Duggan to the US after a magistrate hears Duggan’s extradition case.
The case will be heard in a Sydney court this month, two years after his arrest in rural Australia at a time when Britain was warning its former military pilots not to work for China.
Su Bin, arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded guilty in 2016 to theft of US military aircraft designs by hacking major US defense contractors. He is listed among seven co-conspirators with Duggan in the extradition request.
Duggan knew Su Bin as an employment broker for Chinese state aviation company AVIC, lawyer Collaery wrote, and the hacking case was “totally unrelated to our client.”
Although Su Bin “may have had improper connection to (Chinese) agents this was unknown to our client,” Duggan’s lawyer wrote.
‘OVERT INTELLIGENCE CONTACT’
AVIC was blacklisted by the US last year as a Chinese military-linked company.
Messages retrieved from Su Bin’s electronic devices show he paid for Duggan’s travel from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to extradition documents lodged by the United States with the Australian court.
Duggan asked Su Bin to help source Chinese aircraft parts for his Top Gun tourist flight business in Australia, Collaery wrote.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and US Navy criminal investigators knew Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and met him in Australia’s Tasmania state in December 2012 and February 2013, his lawyer wrote.
ASIO and the US Navy Criminal Investigation Service did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the meetings. ASIO has previously said it would not comment as the matter was before the court.
“An ASIO officer suggested that while carrying on his legitimate business operations in China, Mr.Duggan may be able to gather sensitive information,” his lawyer wrote.
Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was barred from leaving the country in 2014, his lawyer said. Duggan’s LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him said he was working in China as an aviation consultant in 2013 and 2014.
He renounced his US citizenship in 2016 at the US embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificate, after “overt intelligence contact by US authorities that may have compromised his family safety,” his lawyer wrote.
His lawyers oppose extradition, arguing there is no evidence the Chinese pilots he trained were military and that he became an Australian citizen in January 2012, before the alleged offenses.
The United States government has argued Duggan did not lose his US citizenship until 2016.
