Nicolas Sarkozy Faces Investigation For Party Funding

Nicolas Sarkozy Faces Investigation For Party Funding

A formal investigation will be conducted on Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, in connection to the reported illegal party funding that involved the richest woman in France.

However, lawyers of the former president indicated that they will file an appeal on the decision to start an investigation over accusations that he profited from Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oreal heiress, who was supposedly in poor health at that time.

The allegations that he took campaign funds from the heiress were repeatedly denied by the former president.

Nicolas Sarkozy was suddenly asked to go to the office of the judge Jean-Michel Gentil, where he had a face-to-face encounter with some of the former staff of Ms. Bettencourt. The confrontation was about the allegation that he accepted envelopes containing cash from Ms. Bettencourt.

Around four million euros or $4.9 million were suspected to have reached the UMP party of the former president. The funds were supposedly used for the campaign of the former president.

The judge wanted to know how often Nicolas Sarkozy visited the heiress during the course of his presidential campaign. A statement from the Bordeaux prosecutor indicated that the former president enjoys the presumption of innocence. He was also informed about the formal investigation for supposedly taking advantage of the poor health of the heiress in February 2007.

The former president asserted that he visited the residence of Ms. Bettencourt only once during the course of the campaign in order to meet with her late husband.

However, the staff of the heiress disagreed with his version of what happened. Thierry Herzog, the lawyer of the former president criticized the decision to investigate his client. He indicated that he will file an appeal to stop the investigation.

Medical experts have indicated that the mental capacity of Ms. Bettencourt, who is already 90 years old, started to deteriorate in 2006. Nicolas Sarkozy lost his immunity from being prosecuted after his defeat in the last presidential elections to Francois Hollande.

Posted by James Fried on Saturday March 23 2013, 5:05 AM EST. Ref: ABC. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0