Two defendants have been pointing fingers at each other on the third day of the Clearstream trial. GRÁINNE HARRINGTON reports from Paris
ON A crucial day in the high-profile Clearstream trial, alleged accomplices Jean-Louis Gergorin and Imad Lahoud took to the witness stand in a packed courtroom and proceeded to accuse each other of being the instigator of a smear against Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Lahoud, a Franco-Lebanese mathematician, admitted yesterday to adding Mr Sarkozy’s name to a bogus list of bank accounts in Luxembourg clearing house Clearstream. The accounts were purported to contain bribes from the sale of French warships to Taiwan. “I did it, and today I bitterly regret this and ask for forgiveness,” Mr Lahoud, now a teacher, admitted in court.
He went on to accuse Mr Gergorin, his former employer, of giving him the order to add Mr Sarkozy to the list. “I was his object,” said Lahoud. “I recognise that now. I did what he asked me to do.”
Mr Gergorin, a close associate of former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, also accused, denied the accusation: “Everything that Mr Lahoud says is false . . . a total tissue of untruths.”
The two stand accused, along with Mr de Villepin, of attempting to smear Mr Sarkozy and derail his presidential ambitions by fabricating the Clearstream listings.
The list subsequently landed on the desk of an investigative judge in 2004, when Mr Sarkozy and Mr de Villepin were bitter rivals to lead the presidential bid of the UMP party. By the time the fabrication was exposed, the case was in the open and Mr Sarkozy’s reputation had already been damaged. The court must now decide who instigated the falsifications.
Richard Malka, lawyer for the Clearstream bank, said that Mr Lahoud’s testimony was a “new version” of his story. “Lahoud now has a real credibility problem.”
The two defendants met when Mr Gergorin was vice-president of aeronautical company EADS, and hired Mr Lahoud to work at the company. Mr Gergorin subsequently introduced his employee to contacts within the DGSE, the French secret service. It was through these contacts that Mr Lahoud began to work for the secret services and received the original Clearstream list, which did not contain Mr Sarkozy’s name. He brought the list to Mr Gergorin, who later admitted anonymously sending them to a judge, allegedly on the orders of Mr de Villepin. Mr de Villepin denies all charges.
In an interview on France 2 television last night, Mr Sarkozy made it clear that he was determined to see the case through, and denied that his presidential powers gave him undue influence over the case. “I am not a man who lies. I am not a man who gives in, or who jokes with the notion of honour . . . Let justice do its job. I am confident.”