Former French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, denied all accusations against him of “illegal financing of an election campaign” and “association of criminals” which were levelled as part of an investigation into the Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign of former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“In the absence of the complete credibility of the late Libyan colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, Abdullah Al-Senussi, and businessman Ziad Takieddine, it seems to me that the accusations against Brice Hortefeux are baseless,” Jean-Yves Dupeux, his lawyer told AFP.
He added that his client “presented solid physical evidence that he was not in Libya on the day Takiedinne and Al-Senussi claimed he provided details of bank accounts.”
The lawyer expressed “his total surprise” because “today, everything shows that there was no Libyan funding for the 2007 presidential campaign.”
The investigation into this case was opened after a document was published by French investigative journal ‘Mediapart’ in 2012. This document alleged that Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign, which brought him to power, was funded by the government of Muammar Gaddafi.