Former French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was questioned in Paris on Tuesday in connection with the 2020 retraction of Ziad Takieddine, who had previously accused her husband of financing his 2007 presidential campaign with Libyan funds, according to a legal source.
The wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy stands accused of witness tampering and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud. She has been placed under judicial control and barred from contacting anyone involved in the case, with the exception of her husband, the source stated further.
The former First Lady is suspected of having acted as an intermediary between her husband and his friend Michèle Marchand, a prominent figure in the celebrity press suspected of having orchestrated the retraction of Takieddine.
The businessman had been one of Sarkozy's main accusers in the investigation into the alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. Until 2020, he claimed to have handed over Libyan funds to Sarkozy's campaign team.
After Sarkozy was indicted in October 2020, Marchand launched operation 'Save Sarkozy,' travelling with journalists and intermediaries to Lebanon, to shoot images of Takieddine, who had been living there since being convicted in France in June 2020 in a different case, according to Le Monde daily.
The businessman denied the transfer of the Libyan funds on camera, in an interview published in Paris Match and broadcast on French television channel BFM-TV.
