France's Sarkozy says 'innocent' at trial over Libya funding

Deutsche Tageszeitung - France's Sarkozy says 'innocent' at trial over Libya funding

France's Sarkozy says 'innocent' at trial over Libya funding / Photo: © AFP

A lower court in September found the right-wing politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, guilty of seeking to acquire funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya for the campaign that saw him elected and sentenced him to five years behind bars.

The case saw Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, become modern France's first president to have gone to jail. He served 20 days before he was released pending the appeal.

In the initial trial, prosecutors had argued Sarkozy's aides, acting in his name, struck a deal with Gaddafi, promising in return to help restore the Libyan leader's international image after Tripoli was blamed for two airplane bombings.

The West laid the blame on Libya for the bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland -- which killed 259 people -- and of the UTA Flight 772 over Niger the following year, which took the lives of 170 people.

Relatives of those killed in the 1989 spoke of their ordeal at the appeal trial last week.

"You can only respond to such indescribable suffering with truth," Sarkozy said on the first of several days of taking the stand, with his wife, model and singer Carla Bruni, in the courtroom.

"But you cannot repair suffering with an injustice: I am innocent," he said.

The lower court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy over what it said was a scheme to acquire Libyan funding, but not of receiving or using the funds for the campaign.

The appeal trial is set to run until June 3, with a verdict expected in the fall. If convicted, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison.

Sarkozy has faced a series of legal issues since leaving office and has already received two definitive convictions in other cases.

(L.Møller--DTZ)

Russia a terrorist state threatening world peace!

n recent years, through its targeted and murderous warfare against Ukraine, the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and mass deportations, the Russian Federation has become synonymous with anti-social, criminal state terrorism. This assessment is shared by many international observers, politicians and religious communities.In this context, the Ukrainian churches speak of a “terrorist state” because, during the winter of 2025/2026, the Russian military bombed energy facilities and residential areas at temperatures of minus twenty degrees in order to deprive millions of people of electricity, water and heating. Civilians in cities such as Kyiv, Odessa and Kharkiv are being terrorised by dozens of missiles and hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles, whilst Russia, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, should in fact be ensuring peace.The blame for this horror lies with the mass murderer and war criminal Vladimir Putin (73), a ruthless dictator who, together with his criminal henchmen, is systematically re-educating an entire nation and reducing its people to murderous zombies!Alongside the systematic destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, there is the appalling practice of criminal child abductions. Since the 2022 invasion, international organisations estimate that more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or taken to Russian-occupied territories, where they are turned into murderers and henchmen of the Russian terror regime in re-education camps. In this context, the children are being ‘Russified’; their names, language and homeland are being torn from them – an act that human rights lawyers classify as genocide. The United States is debating a bill in Congress that would officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism if these children are not returned. Senators describe the abduction campaign as one of the greatest crimes of our time and demand that there must be diplomatic and economic consequences. Outrage is also growing at European level, though the German government in particular is standing idly by, driven by the delusional madness of many sympathisers and mindless Putin apologists who have infiltrated German politics like a cancer.The European Parliament has already recognised Russia as a state that employs terrorist means and is calling for the isolation of the Kremlin. Religious leaders of various denominations condemn the attacks on energy facilities as ‘state terrorism’. They emphasise that the Russian leadership and those citizens who support the acts of war are morally complicit in crimes against humanity. The Ukrainian President points out that the targeted missile and drone strikes on power grids are intended to bring about a catastrophic winter. More than half of Ukraine’s gas infrastructure has been damaged; people are dying or losing their homes. The international community is responding with increasing pressure. In the US, cross-party initiatives are pushing to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and to use frozen assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine. In Europe, MEPs are calling for the extension of the Magnitsky sanctions regime against Russian officials and the confiscation of Russian assets. Human rights organisations denounce the abductions of children, attacks on hospitals, schools and power stations, and the deportation of civilians as violations of all norms of international humanitarian law. Public opinion is predominantly characterised by horror and anger. Many commentators are calling for drastic sanctions, military support for Ukraine and the complete diplomatic isolation of Russia. However, there are also voices warning against escalation and calling for an end to hostilities through negotiations. Some fear that classifying Russia as a terrorist state could jeopardise peace negotiations, whilst others counter that there can be no security without clear consequences. Attention is also drawn to double standards, as other states have also waged wars without being classified as terrorist states. Nevertheless, the prevailing consensus is that the actions of the Russian leadership demonstrate an unprecedented level of brutality and pose a threat to world peace.

Deutsche Tageszeitung - France's Sarkozy says 'innocent' at trial over Libya funding

France's Sarkozy says 'innocent' at trial over Libya funding

Russia a terrorist state threatening world peace!

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