French police raid home of former president Nicolas Sarkozy

Police officers have carried out a number of raids in Paris - on the villa Nicolas Sarkozy shares with his wife Carla Bruni, on the law offices of the former president's attorneys and on the apartment provided to him by the government.

Judge Jean-Michele Gentil and financial police searched the Sarkozys’ villa Montmorency, located in the French capital's most luxurious district, the offices of Arnaud, Claude and Associates, in which Sarkozy is a shareholder, and an apartment given to the former president by the government.

The raids are reportedly linked to a campaign finance corruption scandal involving billionaire L’Oreal heiress Lilian Bettencourt.

Bettencourt, France’s richest woman, is alleged to have illegally contributed two payments of 400,000 euros each to Mr Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign, despite the fact the legal limit on individual donations being 4,600 Euro.

Both were traced to Swiss accounts, and one was allegedly received by Sarkozy in person in Paris, in return for offering the cosmetics magnate  tax breaks once he came to power.

Numerous witnesses including a butler, nurse and chauffeur have described seeing Mr Sarkozy paying personal visits to the Bettencourt mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the upmarket Paris suburb.

Sarkozy’s presidential immunity from prosecution expired on June 16th and his former budget minister Eric Woerth has already been charged with corruption.

This is just one of several cases Sarkozy may be investigated for, now that constitutional protection has been removed. He is also facing allegations that he profited from illegal arms sales to Pakistan, and that he accepted millions from former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

His lawyer Thierry Herzog said Sarkozy, who was defeated in his re-election bid in May by the Socialist Francois Hollande, is currently in Canada with his family.

France’s Sarkozy In Trouble With The Law?

France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy may face criminal charges for taking bribes on military contracts and for illegal campaign funding. He risks going to jail for five years if found guilty. Sarkozy, whose presidential immunity expires this week, denies wrongdoing. But there are at least two cases in which the ex-president will have to testify. One involves Liliane Bettencourt, France’s richest woman and heiress of the L’Oreal cosmetics giant. In 2007, she allegedly transferred large sums to Swiss banks in a suspected tax evasion plot. Later, part of that money ended up on Sarkozy’s campaign accounts.

Another case is the so-called Karachi-gate. In the middle of the 90s, France supplied two Agosta submarines to Pakistan and allegedly paid generous commissions to Pakistani middlemen. Part of those commissions were kicked back to fund former French Prime Minister Eduard Balladur’s election campaign with Nicolas Sarkozy, budget minister at the time, as chief of Balladur’s campaign staff. Balladur lost to Chirac, who banned commission payments to arms dealers. Later, 11 French engineers were killed in a bomb blast in Karachi during the construction of those same submarines. Even though there is almost no evidence of Sarkozy’s direct involvement in their deaths, the chances of his being summoned to court in this episode at least as a witness are fairly high, says Yuri Rubinsky, a senior analyst at the Institute for European Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“There is no direct evidence in either of the cases. So far, the ex-president has been summoned as a witness, not as a defendant. The example of Chirac, who received a two-year suspended prison term, is quite illustrative in this regard. It shows that the justice department keeps an eye on the head of state. Once his immunity expires, he is an ordinary citizen. As for Sarkozy, I don’t think that this will be an attempt to take revenge or prevent his political comeback, rather it will be hearings on the merits.”

Kira Zuyeva of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations believes that Sarkozy will escape prosecution as did Chirac.

“It seems to be more about condemnation than about conviction. Despite the gravity of the charges against him, one can hardly expect Sarkozy to be sent to prison. He is a shrewd politician and will find a way of exonerating himself. Things won’t go beyond discussions and condemnations.”

Meanwhile, Sarkozy may potentially be brought to justice in two more cases: for accepting campaign donations from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2007 and for misuse of public funds in 2010-2012.