highlights
Sarkozy VS ex-PM in slander trial
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-21 17:05
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 In this June 10, 2005 file photo, then French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, left, and then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy depart after a work meeting on immigration at the premier's office in Paris. Villepin will stand trial Monday Sept. 21, 2009 in the so-called Clearstream scandal, over suspicions he had a hand in a campaign to smear Nicolas Sarkozy before Sarkozy was elected president. [Agencies] |
PARIS: Two men who reached the pinnacle of French politics after a career-long battle stand at the heart of a slander trial opening in Paris on Monday.
Nicolas Sarkozy says Dominique de Villepin was involved in a smear campaign known as the Clearstream affair designed to keep Sarkozy from winning France's top job in 2007 elections.
Sarkozy is a plaintiff in the case, but he won't be anywhere near the court because his presidential position means he doesn't have to testify. Former Prime Minister Villepin will be on the defendants' bench along with four others, accused of perpetuating bogus claims that Sarkozy hid bribe money in a Luxembourg bank.
The unusual, complicated saga dates back to 2004, when both men -- the kinetic, dark-haired Sarkozy and the suave, silver-haired Villepin, both conservatives, both government ministers -- were considered leading hopefuls to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.
It began with a mysterious list claiming to show clients with secret accounts with Luxembourg clearing house Clearstream, including Sarkozy and other leading French political and business figures. The accounts were purportedly created to hold bribes from a 1991 sale of warships to Taiwan, among other shady income.
Villepin became aware of the list and asked an intelligence adviser for the Defense Ministry, Gen. Philippe Rondot, to investigate it. Rondot determined it was a hoax, but the list was already making the rounds among government and judicial officials.
For Villepin, the key questions in the trial are how much he knew about the list and when he learned that it was fake.
Villepin says he did nothing wrong. The prosecutor's 225-page indictment says Villepin should have alerted judicial authorities to the scam earlier.
Vitriol has boiled on both sides. Sarkozy reportedly said he wanted Villepin to "hang on a meathook" over his alleged role in the affair. Villepin says Sarkozy is "obsessed" by the case.
"No one wants the truth more than I. No one wants justice more than I," Villepin, then prime minister, told parliament in 2006, his orator's voice rising to a crescendo.
Villepin is accused of "complicity to slanderous denunciations" and "complicity in using forgeries" among other charges. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a fine of euro375,000 ($551,437.50).
