Posted on 07/05/2007 12:22:40 PM PDT by HAL9000
Paris - Two French magistrates investigating an attempt to smear President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday searched the Paris residence of former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who has been implicated in the affair by a former espionage official, France-Info radio reported.The search by judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons followed testimony by a former senior official in France's counter- intelligence service, General Philippe Rondot, that Villepin was behind the attempt to implicate Sarkozy in an affair involving illegal payments into foreign bank accounts.
According to the internet site of the daily Le Monde, Rondot told the two judges on Wednesday that files found on his computer suggesting that the former prime minister was behind the smear attempt were accurate.
He said that a former senior manager with the aerospace giant EADS, Jean-Louis Gergorin, had told him on May 4, 2004, that Villepin ordered him eight days earlier to meet with a judge looking into kickbacks from the sale of six frigates to Taiwan.
On May 14, that judge, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, received the first of several anonymous letters charging that a number of prominent French figures held illegal bank accounts abroad into which kickbacks related to the frigate sale were deposited.
One of the individuals implicated was Sarkozy, then finance minister. At the time, Villepin was interior minister.
Other evidence discovered in the investigation has suggested that Villepin may have acted for then-president Jacques Chirac, a fierce rival of Sarkozy's.
If the allegations are confirmed by other evidence or testimony, Villepin could eventually be placed under investigation for slander, Le Monde said.
I hope he’s tried convicted gets his head shaved and gets the death penalty.
It was’t so long ago that the Democrats were kissing up to these thugs, complaining that Bush was going it alone by not doing what the French wanted. Now look at them, thrown out by their voters and under investigation. Hah...
This is not a good sign. If European apparatchiks want to get you, they will get you, even if the charges are preposterous, even if the evidence is stacked in your favour, and even if the apparatchiks themselves cooperated in the conduct of whatever malfeasance it is they accuse you of. Example: Paul Wolfowitz, formerly of the world bank, who was forced to resign not because of anything he did, but because the accusations themselves were said to have brought disgrace to the world bank even though the accusations were false and the accusers were political opponents of Wolfowitz within the bank itself. Sarkozy had better heed the warning of only the latest French coup attempt and purge the French intelligence community, just as Bush should have purged the US State Department, Justice Department, CIA, and NSA, yet never did.
Interesting, thanks for posting; ping.
Scooter Libby
is this the guy who ambushed colin powell at the un security council about not being onboard with our iraq proposal?
The French don’t fool around. Imagine if the Justice Department had searched Joe Wilson’s house.
What goes around, comes around.
Couldn’t happen to a nice guy!
I am happy to see justice done, but I think that you are correct, the aparachiki are powerful in not so obvious of ways it would be safer to pick up a black mamba then to leave these folks in office.
A new broom sweeps clean.
HA! :D....DemocRATs have long since (40+ years), giving-up, even the appearance of obeying the National/State laws.
$hrillary: "the little people laws aren't for Us...b/c we're much too smart for trivial things, like laws.....So JUST Go Away!
Now, the Clintons, they know how to clean a house!
yitbos
Oh, a bald bowling ball!!!
Uh, France still uses the guillotine, doesn't she?
Not anymore, France abolished the death penalty in 1981.
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