Sarkozy-Gaddafi

Sarkozy-Gaddafi: The Truth They Want To Kill


November 17, 2014 |  by

Edwy Plenel (http://www.mediapart.fr/biographie/23)


[The original French article: http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/171114/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-verite-qu-ils-veulent-etouffer?onglet=full ]




The judicial confirmation of the suspicion of financing of the late President of French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy by Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan dictatorship is important news. Revealed by Mediapart three days ago, it is nonetheless absent from every media agency wall and from every continuous reporting channel. Aiming to shake up this unjustifiable indifference, we are publishing the entirety of the file ignored by most medias.

It is probably Mediapart’s most emblematic inquiry. By its stakes, by its length, by its difficulty. However, it is almost unrelayed in the public space, either by journalists or politicians. Could both professions be afraid to face the truth at the core, could it be too explosive, formidable, devastating?

For when the Bettencourt affair unveiled oligarchic criminality and the Cahuzac affair the politic imposture, in both cases fraud and tax avoidance, the Libyan issue makes them look like bugs, revealing the spectacular and ravaging reality: the corruption of a French political party by foreign money coming from a dictatorial regime.This corruption also supported the grasp of this political clan on government apparatus, up to and including the paroxysm, the hidden financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2007.
This corruption whose shameful secrets, the possibility cannot be excluded, could have played a part during 2011 for French military interventionnism in Libya, triggering the fall and the death of a dictator who was once received in Paris with great pomp.

Since Summer 2011, for more than three years, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske are leading the long-term investigation with this very Mediapart requirement: to search by ourselves, without relying on political or judiciary agendas, without relaying partisan interests, by unveiling ignored facts in order to impose their reality in the public debate. Dozens of files and multiple cross-checked testimonies are the raw material of this Libyan inquiry whose conclusion is the financing of Nicolas Sarkozy by Muammar Gaddafi (read our dossier here: http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/dossier/notre-dossier-largent-libyen-de-sarkozy ).
Keeping in mind the close connection between the two men during the spectacular reception, in winter 2007, of the second one by the first one, our two inquirers patiently followed the secret thread to the concealed reason: financial relationship established in 2005, when Nicolas Sarkozy was Minister of the Interior, in the fringe of travels and contracts involving Ziad Takieddine, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux.

Obtained by Mediapart before the justice system started using them, the intermediary Takieddine’s archives demonstrate it generously (Takieddine was already a protagonist in the Karachi affair).

One can find Takieddine’s archives here : http://www.mediapart.fr/dossier/france/les-documents-de-takieddine . Their content is corroborated by multiple testimonies from old and new Libyan officers gathered by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske. Overcoming a number of challenges in the scores-settling climate accompanying the dictator’s fall, a world where numerous witnesses disappear, are assassinated or put in solitary confinement, the two journalists ended up finding official proof of this Franco-Libyan corruption sealed at the highest level.

Revealed by Mediapart April, 28 2012, this document comes from the kind of archives allowing authoritarian regimes to have long memories ( see our article : http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/280412/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-preuve-du-financement ). Dated December, 10 2006, signed by Moussa Koussa, one of Gaddafi’s closest collaborators, chief of his foreign intelligence service, it records the “agreement in principle” concluded to “support the election campaign of the presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy by an amount worth 50 million.

We published this document with the certainty of its authenticity, tied to the context it was obtained in, its form, its style, and finally its content confirmed by other data already revealed by Mediapart   ( notably here : http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/120312/presidentielle-2007-kadhafi-aurait-finance-sarkozy ). And this authenticity was challenged as a focus for the counterattack by Nicolas Sarkozy and his allies aiming to cover up this Franco-Libyan scandal at the very time justice was taking over from our revelations, judging them credible enough to open, by Spring 2013, a judicial inquiry for “corruption”; the judges Serge Tournaire and René Grouman were entrusted with this investigation.
Nicolas Sarkozy never sued us for defamation about this affair, which would have been, if not fair, at least a loyal war on the rights of the press. Instead, he chose to build a smoke screen by accusing us to have published a fake document, first transmitting this accusation to the prosecution services, triggering a preliminary investigation which obviously did not make him any good, then, facing this failure, filing by Summer 2013 a complaint and launching a civil action, targeting Mediapart, its editor and the two journalists concerned.

We became witness supporters in this case, for it was the only juridical status for us to be legally heard, and we contested this diversionary tactic. This procedure was circumventing the rights of the press which protect the citizens’ right to know and endangered a fundamental principle, the secrecy of journalistic information sources (read here : http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/020512/mediapart-porte-plainte-contre-sarkozy-pour-denonciation-calomnieuse ,  there : http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/edwy-plenel/160512/kadhafi-sarkozy-mediapart-entendu-par-la-police-judiciaire,  there too http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/edwy-plenel/111213/la-nouvelle-attaque-de-nicolas-sarkozy-contre-mediapart and also there http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/050214/argent-libyen-le-faux-temoin-de-sarkozy the previous episodes). But, far from supporting the libellous suspicion spread by Mr Sarkozy and his clan, the investigation, lead by the judges René Cros and Emmanuelle Legrand, collected even more testimonials copiously agreeing with our own inquiry and, most notably, accrediting further the veracity of the content of the document in question ( read our article here : http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/260914/financements-libyens-l-enquete-judiciaire-conforte-le-document-de-mediapart ).

Alas, during this all time, and often with the same relays than in the Cahuzac affair, the sarkozyst counterattack worked perfectly in the mediatic world, overshadowing the Libyan scandal with suspicious and discourteous comments from most of our fellow journalists on our work. From Le Monde to Vanity Fair, besides the indifferent actors who choose to abscond, special mention to Agence France-Presse, the dominant noise was doubt about the authenticity of the document published in April 2012. And one can bet that if justice had, against all likelyhood, worked in the same direction, the dominant media would have shouted it loud and clear.
But the opposite happened, the corruption was demonstrated, and this news they chose to silence.


Foreign corruption at the highest level of the French Republic

To cover up an information, one just has to not transmit it. And the intensity level of a democracy is displayed in such selling-outs, when journalists forget they are the participants and guardians of democracy by respecting without concession the citizens’ right to know. French democracy must be quite ill if it reaches the point where the revelation of a panel of experts authentifying without any reservation a document planifying foreign corruption at the highest level of the Republic.
As we explained in our November 14 article ( find it here : http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/141114/sarkozy-kadhafi-des-experts-valident-l-authenticite-du-document-de-mediapart?page_article=1 ), the three forensic experts mandated by the judges Cros and Legrand, reinforced by an Arabist’s expertise, compared the signature of the document in question to multiple signatures from the previous leader of the Libyan intelligence who had been heard by the magistrates of Qatar, the country where he sought refuge. Their conclusion is final: all of the signatures are by the same hand, Moussa Koussa’s hand. The document which Koussa already confessed, on record, to be “not fake in both origin and content”, is not fake either by its signature, which is authentic.
In other words, one of the individual whose Nicolas Sarkozy and his entourage waved the denial when the document was first revealed ( the story can be found here : http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/election-presidentielle-2012/20120430.OBS7357/moussa-koussa-qualifie-le-document-publie-par-mediapart-de-faux.html ) is today designated by the French justice system as the signatory of this attestation of the secret Franco-Libyan agreement.
In a nutshell, the slanderous proceedings launched by the ex-president against Mediapart brutally turn over on him: the fake document he was evoking meeting after meeting to depict himself as persecuted by fraudster media and overinquisitive judges, is revealed to be true in in accordance with our affirmation, proving one of the biggest scandal the Republic ever knew at the highest degree of accountability.
In a living democracy, such an information would immediatly saturate our entire public life. The press agency, and notably the AFP which fulfills a public service mission for its suscribers (amongst them regional press) would have relayed it, informing public opinion about forensic examinations which confirms the authenticity of a document condamning the ex-President of French Republic. Other medias would have followed, drowning Nicolas Sarkozy and his entourage under the questions. And the diverse political world would have been invited to react and comment.

Instead, nothing. Nothing, nothing. The heavy silence of weakened, slumped democracy, who renounced to be rigorous towards themselves. If they do not read Mediapart or follow social networks ( see under the "Prolonger" tab Fabrice Arfi’s protest http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/171114/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-verite-qu-ils-veulent-etouffer?onglet=prolonger , acclaimed by internauts), our fellow citizens will never know the long Libyan affair serial was crowned by a decivise judiciary episode confirming our investigation and attesting the corruption case previously unveiled.
One often has to fight for an information which disturbs interests and powers finds its way to the public space. It is with this idea in mind that, as a recipient at my address, by registered mail from the two investigating judges, of a “notification of the expert conclusions”, I chose to make public in extenso the following content (annexes-lightened).It is an information of Public Importance regarding a state scandal. Here it is:

[EXPERT CONCLUSIONS

The forensic report is available on http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/171114/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-verite-qu-ils-veulent-etouffer?onglet=full ]



SARKOZY THE TRAITOR, SARKOZY CORRUPTED



THE FACTS

A document from the Libyan secret services establishing the past French president Nicolas Sarkozy had been financed (€50 million) by the dictator Muammar Gaddafi has been found by the journalists of Mediapart after a long inquiry.

(All the details are here
French version: http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/171114/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-verite-qu-ils-veulent-etouffer?onglet=full
English version: http://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/181114/sarkozy-gaddafi-funding-scandal-stifled-truth )

Moussa Koussa, ex-chief of the secret services and a lieutenant of Gaddafi, declared the document was authentic and the financing too, the only reservation was about the signature. Said signature has been proved to be authentic by juridic forensics.

Forensics are a legal process. People are telling us it’s up to justice to decide if there was effective corruption. Well, that’s awesome, for about that, French justice demonstrated there WAS corruption! Or at least, demonstrated the veracity of a document valid as evidence.

A new interesting element which cannot be set aside has been added: the fact the entirety of French mainstream medias are boycotting the information. COMPLETE BLACKOUT. They are not talking about it, they are not contesting it, they are ignoring it.
More than a week after the veracity of the signature has been demonstrated, a French citizen has to search until PAGE FOUR of Google News to find a second article on the affair.

Newspapers do not talk about it. TV does not talk about it. The big news websites do not talk about it. The Agence France-Press do not talk about it. Nobody is talking about it.
Even the right-wing websites, usually quick to mock the mainstream political scene, do not talk about it. Even conspiracy freaks and extremists shut the hell up. Even in this most unhealthy world, the story was merely mentioned, in a brief E&R article, signed by “the E&R redaction”.

There was not even a single TF1 newsflash saying something like “Once again, Mediapart is unfairly accusing an innocent politician”. In mainstream and even fringe French media, it is complete blackout.

The silence.



THE COMPLETE DUD THEORY

Some people say the "scoop" is a complete dud. It is still a possibility. However, at the same time, Nabila or Hollande-Gayet (or even other, more “innocent” Sarkozy scandals) are making the headlines. Why does the other gossip dominate the press while the authentification of Koussa’s signature is magically becoming the universal dud?

Do you want an answer? A clear answer everyone can learn, which is displayed everywhere for the public eye to see?
It is not hidden at all...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2x2vNaCQAAUYH0.jpg

The boss of the press are Sarkozy’s best friends, that is the answer. He’s publicly their friend (and the CEOs’). They are maintaining a dominant paradigm in which Sarkozy is a “strong man”, maybe not a nice man, maybe not a totally pleasing man, maybe a man who can do mistakes, but a loyal and strong man, who does what he HAS to do. The same fantasy which benefitted much to Vladimir Putin for example.
This Sarkozy, Sarkozy’s public persona, can be a victim to scandals, but not too much. And not this one.
The public Sarkozy can be bling bling. He can be brutal. He can be a womanizer. He can make mistakes. But he cannot be a traitor.




THE SITUATION

Nicolas Sarkozy’s friends surely didn’t gather in a darkness-filled room to laugh maniacally before saying “We’re going to cover up the affair”. They didn’t need to do this. The Omerta (code of silence) traditionally doesn’t need to be decided or recalled to work.
And the deliberate complicity wasn’t alone to do the dirty work of establishing the complete mediatic blackout. The fear of being the only person to talk about it, the indifference, inertia (the famous Bystander Effect applied to the mediatic world)? Probably a mix of everything.

In any case, if the affair is confirmed (let’s not forget presumption of innocence), we are way beyond the “Everything is corrupted” idea, beyond the usual “All politicians are like this anyway”. It is about a President of French Republic who has been bought by foreign money. It would be treason against the State and corruption by another State (a dictatorship!).

Let us not forget, too, what the financing could imply about the war initiated by Sarkozy against Libya and Gaddafi’s assassination. Nothing tells us the corruption affaire is linked to that, but it is a very real possibility.

This affair is serious. Let’s fight the silence.

Please, relay the Mediapart article ( http://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/181114/sarkozy-gaddafi-funding-scandal-stifled-truth ) and relay this little explanation. In France, we are very afraid.



SARKOZY THE TRAITOR, SARKOZY CORRUPTED



THE FACTS

A document from the Libyan secret services establishing the past French president Nicolas Sarkozy had been financed (€50 million) by the dictator Muammar Gaddafi has been found by the journalists of Mediapart after a long inquiry.

(All the details are here
French version: http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/171114/sarkozy-kadhafi-la-verite-qu-ils-veulent-etouffer?onglet=full
English version: http://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/181114/sarkozy-gaddafi-funding-scandal-stifled-truth )

Moussa Koussa, ex-chief of the secret services and a lieutenant of Gaddafi, declared the document was authentic and the financing too, the only reservation was about the signature. Said signature has been proved to be authentic by juridic forensics.

Forensics are a legal process. People are telling us it’s up to justice to decide if there was effective corruption. Well, that’s awesome, for about that, French justice demonstrated there WAS corruption! Or at least, demonstrated the veracity of a document valid as evidence.

A new interesting element which cannot be set aside has been added: the fact the entirety of French mainstream medias are boycotting the information. COMPLETE BLACKOUT. They are not talking about it, they are not contesting it, they are ignoring it.
More than a week after the veracity of the signature has been demonstrated, a French citizen has to search until PAGE FOUR of Google News to find a second article on the affair.

Newspapers do not talk about it. TV does not talk about it. The big news websites do not talk about it. The Agence France-Press do not talk about it. Nobody is talking about it.
Even the right-wing websites, usually quick to mock the mainstream political scene, do not talk about it. Even conspiracy freaks and extremists shut the hell up. Even in this most unhealthy world, the story was merely mentioned, in a brief E&R article, signed by “the E&R redaction”.

There was not even a single TF1 newsflash saying something like “Once again, Mediapart is unfairly accusing an innocent politician”. In mainstream and even fringe French media, it is complete blackout.

The silence.



THE COMPLETE DUD THEORY

Some people say the "scoop" is a complete dud. It is still a possibility. However, at the same time, Nabila or Hollande-Gayet (or even other, more “innocent” Sarkozy scandals) are making the headlines. Why does the other gossip dominate the press while the authentification of Koussa’s signature is magically becoming the universal dud?

Do you want an answer? A clear answer everyone can learn, which is displayed everywhere for the public eye to see?
It is not hidden at all...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2x2vNaCQAAUYH0.jpg

The boss of the press are Sarkozy’s best friends, that is the answer. He’s publicly their friend (and the CEOs’). They are maintaining a dominant paradigm in which Sarkozy is a “strong man”, maybe not a nice man, maybe not a totally pleasing man, maybe a man who can do mistakes, but a loyal and strong man, who does what he HAS to do. The same fantasy which benefitted much to Vladimir Putin for example.
This Sarkozy, Sarkozy’s public persona, can be a victim to scandals, but not too much. And not this one.
The public Sarkozy can be bling bling. He can be brutal. He can be a womanizer. He can make mistakes. But he cannot be a traitor.




THE SITUATION

Nicolas Sarkozy’s friends surely didn’t gather in a darkness-filled room to laugh maniacally before saying “We’re going to cover up the affair”. They didn’t need to do this. The Omerta (code of silence) traditionally doesn’t need to be decided or recalled to work.
And the deliberate complicity wasn’t alone to do the dirty work of establishing the complete mediatic blackout. The fear of being the only person to talk about it, the indifference, inertia (the famous Bystander Effect applied to the mediatic world)? Probably a mix of everything.

In any case, if the affair is confirmed (let’s not forget presumption of innocence), we are way beyond the “Everything is corrupted” idea, beyond the usual “All politicians are like this anyway”. It is about a President of French Republic who has been bought by foreign money. It would be treason against the State and corruption by another State (a dictatorship!).

Let us not forget, too, what the financing could imply about the war initiated by Sarkozy against Libya and Gaddafi’s assassination. Nothing tells us the corruption affaire is linked to that, but it is a very real possibility.

This affair is serious. Let’s fight the silence.

Please, relay the Mediapart article ( http://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/181114/sarkozy-gaddafi-funding-scandal-stifled-truth ) and relay this little explanation. In France, we are very afraid.