Sarkozy under siege: Ex-president of France to face corruption trial
Jonathon Gatehouse | CBC News | Posted: March 29, 2018 5:36 PM | Last Updated: March 29, 2018
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TODAY:
- Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, to face trial for corruption and influence peddling
- Malala Yousafzai, schoolgirl activist who survived an assassination attempt by Taliban in Pakistan and went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize, makes surprise visit home
- Kenyan opposition politician Miguna Miguna is being deported back to Canada for a second time, after being detained for three days in a lavatory at Nairobi's international airport
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Sarkozy under siege
The authorities are closing in on Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France.
This morning, French prosecutors confirmed that the 63-year-old will face trial for corruption and influence peddling over an alleged 2014 attempt to bribe a judge.
The revelation comes a week after Sarkozy was put under formal investigation for allegations that his 2007 presidential campaign was partially underwritten by the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Sarkozy was already facing accounting fraud charges over claims that his failed 2012 re-election bid exceeded campaign spending limits.
He has proclaimed himself innocent of all the accusations.
Today, Sarkozy's lawyers said they will appeal the newest decision to send him to court.
"Nicolas Sarkozy will ... calmly wait for the result of the motion for a declaration of invalidity. He does not doubt that once again the truth will triumph," they said in a press release.
The corruption and influence peddling allegations are linked to the charges about Libyan funding.
Prosecutors allege that in 2014 Sarkozy, using the pseudonym Paul Bismuth, called a judge at France's Court of Cassation and offered to help him secure a high-profile job in Monaco in exchange for information about the Gadhafi investigation.
The conversation, caught on a police wiretap, also touched upon another investigation into whether Sarkozy had received illegal campaign contributions from Liliane Bettencourt, one of France's richest women — an allegation that was eventually dismissed.
Influence peddling is punishable by up to five years in prison in France, as well as fines of up to €500,000.
The Gadhafi allegations date back to 2011, when Sarkozy was still president. After the Libyan dictator's death, his son Saif al Islam Gadhafi went public with claims that the family gave Sarkozy €50 million to finance his 2007 presidential run.
It's a story that was later repeated by French businessman Ziad Takieddine, who says he delivered suitcases full of cash to the then-Interior Minister on several occasions in 2006 and 2007.
Sarkozy says the claims are revenge for his decision to deploy French warplanes against the Gadhafi regime during Libya's 2011 revolution.
In an interview with the Journal de Dimanche this past weekend, Sarkozy called himself the country's "number one target" and vowed to "break" those who are plotting against him.
"Who could believe that when I saw Gadhafi for the first time, that I would have asked a dictator of such a sulphurous reputation for even the tiniest bit of financing for my future campaign?" he asked.
Sarkozy is already planning his defence and indicated that he will call many witnesses.
"I sometimes have the impression that our system has gone mad," he told the interviewer, "that it's longer a case of having to prove an accusation, but rather the defence having to prove one's innocence."
A long delayed homecoming
Malala Yousafzai left Pakistan on a Monday morning in October 2012, a 15-year-old schoolgirl activist chased from her homeland by the Taliban's bullets, unconscious and in critical need of life-saving surgery.
Last night, the now 20-year-old returned a hero. The youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. A global celebrity who can command crowds in Davos and kibbitz on stage with David Letterman. A woman who changes minds.
The surprise return was necessarily cloaked in secrecy. Local media appeared to have twigged to her imminent arrival only when two Islamabad airports were put on lockdown.
Today she made her first public appearance, giving an emotional speech to television cameras from the house of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbas.
"Always it has been my dream that I should go to Pakistan and there, in peace and without any fear, I can move on streets, I can meet people, I can talk to people," Yousafzai said. "So it is actually happening, and I am grateful to all of you."
Yousafzai didn't publicly reveal her plans in advance, but in retrospect, it appears that she did drop several broad hints.
In January, when she spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, she sounded wistful about her enforced, half-decade absence from Pakistan.
"It is just so hard if you haven't seen your home, your relatives, your friends for more than five years," she told an audience. "I didn't leave the country by choice, it was the circumstances that forced me. So I want to go back."
And in her feature interview with Letterman earlier this month for his new Netflix series, Yousafzai waxed lyrical about her home region of Swat. "It is just like a paradise on Earth," she said, mentioning how much she misses its mountains.
And the young activist suggested that things have changed in Pakistan since the attack that almost killed her.
"I have received a lot of support in my country. There is this lust for change," she told Letterman. "People want to see change in their country. I am already doing work there, but I want my feet to touch that land."
But things have not yet changed enough, apparently, for her to make it all the way home. Yousafzai had originally planned to travel to Swat during her trip, but the visit was scrubbed over security concerns. Her extended family is instead traveling to Islamabad to see her.
The homecoming will last three more days, during which Yousafzai will meet government officials and local activists. She'll also promote the efforts of her Malala Fund, a charity devoted to educating girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Then she will return to England to continue her undergraduate studies in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University.
It's a busy life, as she juggles her activism with classes and term papers.
Although she has found time to join the famed Oxford Union debating society, and a cricket team.
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Drugged and deported
A Kenyan opposition politician is being deported back to Canada for a second time, after being detained for three days in a lavatory at Nairobi's international airport.
Miguna Miguna, who was granted political asylum in Canada in 1988, claims he was drugged and forcibly put on a plane to Dubai last night, after being denied entry to the country on March 26.
"About 50 heavily armed thugs, led by the uniformed Somali policeman who had commanded them on Monday, violently broke into the toilet I had been detained incommunicado in at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport, didn't identify themselves, wrestled me to the ground, held onto and sat on me, as a group of four different thugs injected substances to both my soles, arms, hands, both sides of my ribs and basically all over my body until I passed out," the graduate of Toronto's Osgoode Law School wrote in a Facebook post.
Miguna says the next thing he remembers is waking up aboard a plane.
"Today, at around 5:25 a.m., after the Emirates had landed and passengers were disembarking, I regained consciousness and asked a person seated next to me - who also appeared like a flying squad officer - 'where are we?' He told me that we were in Dubai."
Miguna, who is running for governor of Nairobi and calls himself a general in the National Revolutionary Movement, says he suffered a number of injuries during his removal, posting pictures of his bruised ribs and swollen hand.
Kenyan authorities first deported Miguna back to Canada in early February -- in violation of local court orders -- after he participated in a public ceremony "swearing in" opposition leader Raila Odinga as the "people's president."
The government has accused Miguna of treason, saying that he is part of a "proscribed criminal organization," and that his first deportation was done in accordance with the law.
After returning to Toronto, Miguna embarked on a worldwide "Mother of All Liberation Movements" tour, giving speeches in Texas, Washington, Minnesota, London and Berlin.
His final address was scheduled to be delivered in Nairobi on Monday. He was taken into custody upon arrival, and there was a scuffle involving police and local journalists. Afterwards, Miguna began posting to social media from inside a "filthy" lavatory in Domestic Arrivals.
On this occasion, the government says Miguna has been deported because he lacks the proper documents, and must reapply for the Kenyan citizenship he lost when he fled the regime of Daniel Arap Moi in 1988.
"I am innocent man," he wrote on Facebook from the Dubai airport. "I head the National Revolutionary Movement (NRM) in order to bring electoral justice, end bad governance and accountability in governance, and we are determined to remove the despots from their illegitimate positions of power!"
Quote of the moment
"I wanted to die. I straight wanted to die."
- American swimmer Michael Phelps, a 23-time Olympic gold medallist, on his struggles with depression, especially in the aftermath of his dominant performances at four Summer Games.
What The National is reading
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Today in history
March 29, 1966: George Chuvalo's date with destiny and Muhammad Ali
When Muhammad Ali was training in Toronto, his camp charged spectators $1 admission and the gym was always packed. Meanwhile, across town in a far dumpier facility, the hometown hero was having a hard time packing the house — despite only charging 50 cents. Boxing authorities didn't consider the 10th-ranked George Chuvalo a worthy adversary for Ali, let alone a title contender. But their 1966 fight at Maple Leaf Gardens — along with a 1972 rematch — cemented the Canadian's status as legend. He went the distance both times, and was never knocked down. The winning Ali would later call him "the toughest fighter" he ever matched up against.
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