Son of Gaddafi reveals witness tampering attempts in Sarkozy trial
The son of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi claims he was pressured to retract his declarations of Libya funding the 2007 presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy.
In an exclusive interview for RFI on January 23rd, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi declares having been approached on three separate occasions since testifying to French investigators in 2018 that he oversaw the cash payment of $5 million to the former president’s team.
As the trial of Nicolas Sarkozy and 11 other defendants over the alleged illegal funding started in January, RFI managed to contact Gaddafi for his first interview since he first commented the Libyan donation case in 2011.
“Sarkozy has exercised pressures on me through intermediaries several times”, Gaddafi said, in the two-page statement he shared with RFI.
The attempts started after he shared his testimony to investigating judge Serge Tournaire, in which he claimed that Sarkozy campaign team received a total of 4,5 million euros from Libya in 2017.
In 2021, he was allegedly approached by Paris-based consultant Souha al-Bedri who offered help with his International Criminal Court case in exchange for his retractation.
Again, in 2022, he claims Ivorian national Noel Dubus visited his jailed brother Hannibal in Beirut, offering his release against Gaddafi’s testimony change.
According to Gaddafi, a third attempt came from a French person of Arab origin whom he did not wish to name. He says he refused to alter his testimony on all occasions.
According to his testimony, the Libyan regime made two separate payments to Sarkozy’s team of 2.5 million each, the first one in exchange for “agreements and projects in favour if Libya”.
The second transfer was intended to end legal proceedings over the 1989 UTA airline bombing that killed 170 people, including 54 French citizens.
Sarkozy denies any receipt of Libyan money, claiming that Gaddafi only seeks revenge for France leading the NATO coalition’s intervention that ousted his father’s regime.
In December 2024, the French appeal court upheld Sarkozy’s conviction for corruption and influence peddling in relation to another court case.
RFI
