Overview
- Sarkozy began up to four days of questioning Tuesday before the Paris Court of Appeal and repeated that not a single cent of Libyan money entered his 2007 campaign.
- On Wednesday he argued the case stems from a vendetta by the Kadhafi family after France backed the 2011 intervention that helped topple the Libyan regime.
- Judges pressed him with the posthumous notebooks of Libyan minister Choukri Ghanem that mention an April 29th 2007 discussion of funding, which he dismissed as unreliable while citing a denial from Béchir Saleh.
- He shifted blame onto close aides, calling trips by Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux to meet intelligence chief Abdallah Senoussi in 2005 a serious error, and the court will not hear Guéant due to a medical finding.
- Families of the 1989 UTA DC‑10 bombing victims voiced anger last week over any suggestion of leniency for Senoussi, and the appeal scheduled through June could either confirm or overturn Sarkozy’s sentence.