Hommam Al Nassim 
The French judiciary once again summoned Carla Bruni, the wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to complete investigations into Muammar Gaddafi’s financing of his election campaign 17 years ago.
Bruni, 56 years old, faces numerous charges, most notably “covering up witness tampering” and “forming a criminal gang with the aim of preparing fraud before the court and corrupting Lebanese judicial officials,” according to what French sources revealed, citing the Belgian “RTL” channel.
Investigators of the Central Department for Combating Corruption, Financial and Tax Crimes previously interrogated Carla Bruni twice, the first as a witness in June 2023 and the second as a suspect at the beginning of last May. The date of her interrogation has not been set this time, and she may be charged at its conclusion or considered an auxiliary witness.
The judicial investigation, which began in May 2021, aims to uncover the roles played by 12 people close to Sarkozy to change the position of the French-Lebanese mediator Ziad Takieddine during an interview organized by Michele Marchand, who owns the “Best Image” agency.
At the end of 2020, Taqi al-Din decided to acquit the former president (2007-2012) after he was the main party accusing him in the file of “Libyan funds” paid by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. There are suspicions that Sarkozy agreed to these tricks, but he denies this.
Sarkozy is scheduled to be tried at the beginning of next year on charges of “covering up the embezzlement of public funds” and “illegal financing of an election campaign,” as his lawyers filed a request in April to cancel this procedure.
Documents from the investigation, published by Agence “France-Presse” and Le Parisien newspaper, reveal that the financial investigating judge believes there is evidence of the use of a secret phone line by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
The judge believes that the aforementioned line was used by the couple to receive messages from Michel Marchand about how to carry out the campaign financing process. When she was interrogated at the beginning of May that the phone line belonged to her, Bruni denied, and her lawyer, Paul Malle, refused to comment on the matter.
Ziad Taqi al-Din, who took refuge in Lebanon to avoid being arrested in France, is Sarkozy’s main accused, but he retracted his accusation at the end of 2020, confirming to two media outlets that the former president “did not receive a single penny to finance the presidential election campaign” in 2007.
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