A FRENCH court is expected to deliver its keenly awaited verdict today after a trial in which former prime minister Dominique de Villepin is accused of trying to sabotage the campaign of his rival Nicolas Sarkozy to win the presidency in 2007.
The judgment in the so-called Clearstream case will end a four-year dispute between the two in a case involving secret agents, forgery and a web of political intrigue.
Charged with “complicity in slander and the use of forged documents”, Mr Villepin could receive an 18-month suspended jail term and a €45,000 fine if found guilty. He is accused of trying to manipulate a judicial corruption investigation to discredit Mr Sarkozy as the pair angled to succeed Jacques Chirac at the Élysée Palace.
Mr Villepin, who was prime minister for two years until Mr Sarkozy’s inauguration as president in 2007, denies any wrongdoing, but a conviction would severely undermine his declared ambition of challenging Mr Sarkozy for the presidency next year. If the charges are dismissed, it would deal a symbolic blow to Mr Sarkozy, who was a plaintiff in the case and stoked controversy by branding the five defendants “guilty” during a television interview.
A saga worthy of an airport thriller, l’affaire Clearstream dates back to 2004, when an anonymous informant gave an investigating judge a list purporting to contain the names of politicians, businessmen and journalists who held secret bank accounts at the Luxembourg bank Clearstream.
The accounts were said to have been used for laundering kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan.
The most prominent name on the list was Mr Sarkozy’s. Although the judge soon found that the allegations were false and the accounts did not exist, senior intelligence officers were said to have been told to investigate the matter.
Mr Sarkozy saw an attempt to damage him and, suspecting Mr Chirac and Mr Villepin of a plot, vowed to find out where the fraudulent lists had come from. He lodged a legal complaint, as did other figures wrongly accused.
Prosecutors say it was Mr Villepin who prompted the informant, later identified as Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former executive of aerospace group EADS with links to intelligence services, to pass on the list to the judge, even though he knew it to be false.
Mr Villepin denies the charges and has accused Mr Sarkozy of abusing his presidential powers to persecute him.