France’s former first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has been charged in connection with an election funding scandal from 2007, involving cash from then-Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. According to French media, Bruni-Sarkozy, 56, faces charges of hiding evidence and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud.
Under judicial control, Bruni-Sarkozy is prohibited from contacting all other accused individuals except her husband, former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Additionally, she is suspected of concealing witness tampering and attempting to bribe Lebanese judicial personnel, among other violations.
Her lawyers stated to AFP that Bruni-Sarkozy is determined to assert her rights and challenge what they described as an “unfounded decision.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as France’s president from 2007 to 2012, is scheduled to go on trial next year over allegations that he accepted money from Gaddafi to finance his presidential campaign. He is accused of corruption, illegal campaign financing, benefiting from embezzled public funds, and membership in a criminal conspiracy. Sarkozy has consistently denied all charges.
The investigation into these allegations began in 2013, two years after Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son, accused Sarkozy of accepting millions from his father for campaign funding. In 2014, Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who had acted as a middleman between France and the Middle East, supported these claims, telling judges he had written proof that Sarkozy’s campaign was extensively financed by Tripoli and that the €50 million (£43 million) payments continued after Sarkozy became president.
Years later, Takieddine claimed to French media that he had personally delivered suitcases stuffed with banknotes to Sarkozy and his chief of staff, Claude Guéant, who denied the allegations. However, in 2020, Takieddine retracted his statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and his allies, including Bruni-Sarkozy, might have influenced him to change his testimony.
In June, it was found that Bruni-Sarkozy had deleted messages exchanged with a French businesswoman who was being questioned by police over accusations of witness tampering.
Since losing his re-election bid to socialist François Hollande in 2012, Sarkozy has faced several criminal investigations. In 2023, he received a suspended prison sentence for attempting to bribe a judge, and earlier this year, he was found guilty of illegally funding his 2012 re-election campaign.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, an Italian-born former supermodel and singer, married Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008. The couple has a daughter, Giulia, born in 2011.
