Paris, France

A French-Lebanese businessman has claimed that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy received more than $65 million in campaign donation from former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi in 2006.

Arms dealer Ziad Takieddine told the Le Parisien newspaper he has proof of the campaign contribution to Sarkozy after informing a French judge of the dealings, the British newspaper Independent reported Thursday.

Takieddine's revelation, which supports a similar allegation by Gaddafi's son's in 2011, was picked up by the media amid an investigation of his alleged laundering of kickbacks from an arms sale to Pakistan in 1996. The kickbacks were reportedly used for the presidential campaign of then French prime minister Edouard Balladur.

The investigation includes French politicians financed by Libya and Takieddine was apparently trading off information to the courts.

Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, first made the campaign contribution allegation in 2011, when France recognized the rebel Libyan government in Benghazi. Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, denied the allegation.

In March 2012, the left-wing investigative website Mediapart posted online an Arabic document dated December 2006 purportedly signed by Qaddafi's then foreign intelligence chief Mussa Kussa and referred to an approval of the campaign donation.

Sarkozy's then campaign spokeswoman Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet had denied the campaign donation and said that Sarkozy's 2007 campaign funds had been cleared by the Constitutional Council.

Incidentally, Sarkozy is currently being investigated for accepting illegal campaign donation from a cosmetics heiress, according to Huffington Post.

 

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Arms Dealer Claims Gaddafi Donated $65 Million to Sarkozy | News of the World

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