The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will stand trial in 2025 over allegations he has taken money from late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, to fund one of his election campaigns in 2007, prosecutors said on Friday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
AFP explained in a report on friday that Sarkozy’s trial had been scheduled for January-April 2025 and was set to hear explosive evidence that he conspired to take cash from Gaddafi to illegally fund his victorious 2007 bid to become French president.
The accusations were sparked by revelations from the investigative website Mediapart, which published a document purporting to show that Gaddafi agreed to give Sarkozy up to 50 million euros at the time.
In 2011, as Gaddafi was being toppled, his son Saif Al-Islam said publicly that Sarkozy must “give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign”.
Sarkozy has already been convicted twice for corruption and influence-peddling in separate cases involving attempts to influence a judge and campaign financing. He has appealed against both judgements.
Among 12 others facing trial over the alleged Libyan financing are heavyweights such as Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux.
AFP asked Sarkozy to comment on the set date of trial, but he had declined, according to the report. He had repeatedly denied the accusations and repeated during a TV interview on last Wednesday that he had not embezzled a “single centime”.
