PARIS A former aide to Nicolas Sarkozy has been charged as part of an inquiry into allegations that Libyan funds helped finance the French ex-president’s 2007 election campaign, a judicial source said on Monday.
Thierry Gaubert, 68, was charged on Friday with taking hundreds of thousands of euros from the government of Moamer Khadafi that may have been funnelled to Sarkozy’s campaign, the source said.
Allegations that the campaign received up to €50 million ($53.3 million at current rates) from Libya first emerged during Sarkozy’s failed 2012 re-election bid.
Sarkozy helped to remove Qaddafi from power when France and Britain led a NATO-backed military offensive in 2011.
Gaubert worked for Sarkozy when the future president was budget minister in the mid-1990s.
He is suspected of accepting a transfer of €440,000 in February 2006 from Rossfield, a company of Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine — another figure who has been charged in the affair.
The investigative news site Mediapart reported in December that Rossfield took €6 million from Libya in 2006.
Gaubert, as well as his ex-wife, are also on trial for tax fraud and money laundering over Rossfield funds allegedly routed through the Bahamas in 2006.
Gaubert has said the money had no links to Libya.
Sarkozy was charged in 2018 with taking bribes, concealing the embezzlement of Libyan public funds and illegal campaign financing.
He denies the allegations, claiming that an explosive Libyan document presented by Mediapart as proof of the corruption is a fake.
France charges Sarkozy aide in Libya funding probe
https://arab.news/cp5h8
France charges Sarkozy aide in Libya funding probe
- Thierry Gaubert, 68, was charged with taking hundreds of thousands of euros from the government of Moamer Khadafi
- Sarkozy helped to remove Qaddafi from power when France and Britain led a NATO-backed military offensive in 2011
Nigerian president vows security reset in budget speech
- Government plans to buy 'cutting-edge' equipment to boost the fighting capability of military
ABUJA: Nigeria’s president vowed a national security overhaul as he presented the government budget, allocating the largest share of spending to defense after criticism over the handling of the country’s myriad conflicts.
Nigeria faces a long-running insurgency in the northeast, while armed “bandit” gangs commit mass kidnappings and loot villages in the northwest, and farmers and herders clash in the center over dwindling land and resources.
President Bola Tinubu last month declared a nationwide security emergency and ordered mass recruitment of police and military personnel to combat mass abductions, which have included the kidnapping of hundreds of children at their boarding school.
He told the Senate that his government plans to increase security spending to boost the “fighting capability” of the military and other security agencies by hiring more personnel and buying “cutting-edge” equipment.
Tinubu promised to “usher in a new era of criminal justice” that would treat all violence by armed groups or individuals as terrorism, as he allocated 5.41 trillion naira ($3.7 billion) for defense and security.
Security officials and analysts say there is an increasing alliance between bandits and extremists from Nigeria’s northeast, who have in recent years established a strong presence in the northwestern and central regions.
“Under this new architecture, any armed group or gun-wielding non-state actors operating outside state authority will be regarded as terrorists,” said Tinubu, singling out, among others, bandits, militias, armed gangs, armed robbers, violent cult groups, and foreign-linked mercenaries.
He said those involved in political or sectarian violence would also be classified as terrorists.
On the economic front, Tinubu hailed his “necessary” but not “painless” reforms that have plunged Nigeria into its worst economic crisis in a generation.
He said inflation has “moderated” for eight successive months, declining to 14.45 percent in the last month from 24.23 percent in March this year.
He projected that the budget deficit will drop next year to 4.28 percent of GDP from around 6.1 percent of GDP in 2023, the year he came into office.
