{"id":252623,"date":"2025-01-04T12:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T10:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/?p=252623"},"modified":"2025-01-06T13:12:59","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T11:12:59","slug":"libyas-oil-and-gold-reserves-entice-western-governments-sarkozy-returns-to-court-bearing-gaddafis-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/libyas-oil-and-gold-reserves-entice-western-governments-sarkozy-returns-to-court-bearing-gaddafis-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Libya\u2019s Oil and Gold Reserves Entice Western Governments… Sarkozy Returns to Court Bearing \u201cGaddafi\u2019s Legacy\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The British newspaper The Independent<\/em> published a report on Saturday shedding light on a meeting held in Tripoli in 2005. Officially, the meeting between Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Nicolas Sarkozy\u2014then France’s Minister of the Interior and preparing for his 2007 presidential bid\u2014was to discuss irregular migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper reported that an agreement was allegedly reached, as evidenced by statements from seven senior former Libyan officials. These accounts referenced secret trips by Sarkozy’s campaign manager Claude Gu\u00e9ant, a close associate of Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux, and notes from former Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem, whose body was found in the Danube River in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This agreement initially appeared as an \u201cinternational rehabilitation\u201d for Gaddafi. After being elected president, Sarkozy welcomed Gaddafi with great fanfare during a controversial visit to Paris\u2014the first in three decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal also translated into major contracts and judicial assistance for Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi, who was sentenced to life in absentia in France for his role in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner that killed 170 people, including 54 French citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper noted that about 20 individuals are involved in the trial, including two experienced negotiators in international parallel dealings: French-Algerian businessman Alexandre Djouhri and Franco-Lebanese Ziad Takieddine, who fled to Lebanon where he remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigators discovered three wire transfers totaling \u20ac6 million ($6.18 million) in one of Takieddine’s accounts from Libyan authorities, and he spoke of \u201csuitcases\u201d filled with cash handed to Claude Gu\u00e9ant containing \u201clarge bills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigations also revealed unexplained cash circulating within Sarkozy’s campaign headquarters. Eric Woerth, then Minister of Finance, described them as \u201canonymous donations\u201d amounting to only a few thousand euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gu\u00e9ant\u2019s lawyer, Philippe Bouchez El-Ghozi, stated that his client \u201cwill appear in court,\u201d emphasizing that after more than a decade of investigations, no crimes have been proven. He decried the accusations as a \u201cseries of allegations, hypotheses, and estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Case of Retaliation?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sarkozy denies all accusations, describing the charges as mere \u201cretaliation\u201d from Libyans due to his support for the Arab Spring revolution that toppled Gaddafi. His lawyers deny any illegal financing, asserting that no trace of such funds was found in his campaign accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassane Abidi, director of the Geneva-based Center for Arab and Mediterranean Studies, observed that Libya was \u201ca lawless state\u201d when Sarkozy assumed office in 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Independent<\/em> added that French diplomat Patrick Haimzadeh, who served in Tripoli between 2001 and 2004 and authored In the Heart of Gaddafi\u2019s Libya,<\/em> said it was widely known that Gaddafi\u2019s regime financed foreign leaders or political figures\u2014often through cash-filled suitcases. He emphasized it is up to French courts to determine if Sarkozy was one of the beneficiaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper highlighted that the Franco-Libyan dialogue was revived before Sarkozy\u2019s 2007 election, starting in 2001 under then-President Jacques Chirac after Gaddafi strongly condemned the September 11 attacks in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Libyan attitudes shifted, lingering French reservations over unresolved disputes, UN sanctions, and other restrictions persisted. According to Haimzadeh, Paris explored \u201ccooperation channels\u201d limited to non-strategic areas like culture and tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2005, a security attach\u00e9 linked to France\u2019s Interior Ministry joined its embassy in Tripoli, creating a direct line between the ministry and Libyan security officials. Sarkozy\u2019s 2007 election marked a turning point, establishing new areas for cooperation and potential lucrative contracts, particularly in the military sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaddafi\u2019s state visit to France in December 2007 was expected to result in contracts worth billions of euros. However, no deals were signed, straining relations. Abidi explained this tension stemmed from France viewing Libya as an untapped country requiring substantial development, particularly its oil fields. The country also boasts significant reserves of gold and silver, which entice Western governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2011, Gaddafi\u2019s son, Saif al-Islam, politically bombarded Sarkozy, claiming he must return the funds Libya provided to finance his campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analyst Jalel Harchaoui noted that Libyan funding for Sarkozy’s campaign was \u201centirely plausible,\u201d given the long-standing practice of African dictators purchasing influence in France. He specifically cited Gabonese President Omar Bongo\u2019s contributions to political campaigns, including Chirac’s in 1981\u2014a claim Chirac later denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Harchaoui dismissed the notion that the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was driven solely by Sarkozy’s desire to bury the campaign funding controversy, calling it \u201cabsurd,\u201d according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British newspaper The Independent published a report on Saturday shedding light on a meeting held in Tripoli in 2005. Officially, the meeting between Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Nicolas Sarkozy\u2014then France’s Minister of the Interior and preparing for his 2007 presidential bid\u2014was to discuss irregular migration. The newspaper reported that an agreement was allegedly reached, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":252624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[613,614,788],"class_list":["post-252623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-libya","tag-oil","tag-sarkozy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252626,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252623\/revisions\/252626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}