PARIS — The legal woes of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy mounted Friday as prosecutors said he was facing a new charge in a long-running investigation into possible illegal Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. The affair has put a serious dent in the renewed political aspirations of Mr. Sarkozy, president from 2007 to 2012, and still supported by millions of center-right French voters. In the spring of 2018, the first three charges were filed, formally accusing him of misappropriating Libyan public funds, illegal campaign financing and passive corruption, a charge relating to people accused of having received money or favors. So far concrete evidence of Mr. Sarkozy’s guilt has been sparse. Investigators have determined that Mr. Takieddine’s bank accounts were fed by the regime of the now-dead Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Source: New York Times October 16, 2020 14:26 UTC