THE PARIS public prosecutor has paved the way for a second round of the so-called Clearstream trial, after confirming he will appeal former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin’s acquittal on charges of plotting to discredit his rival Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Villepin (56) greeted the announcement yesterday by accusing President Sarkozy of pursuing a vendetta against him.
“This decision is a political decision and what it shows is that Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the republic, prefers to continue in this . . . hatred instead of assuming the responsibilities of his office,” Mr Villepin told French radio.
The former prime minister was accused of being involved in a plot in which forged documents would be used to damage Mr Sarkozy when both men were manoeuvring to succeed Jacques Chirac as president.
However, after months of investigation and weeks of hearings last year, the court ruled on Thursday that there was no proof of Mr Villepin’s involvement in a conspiracy and cleared him on all counts.
The prosecutor’s decision to appeal sets the wheels in motion for a second trial for Mr Villepin, most likely late this year or in early 2011.
“It was with conviction that I told the court about Dominique de Villepin’s guilt,” prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin told Europe 1 radio yesterday. “How can I not appeal?”
Mr Sarkozy, who was a civil plaintiff in the case, said on Thursday that he would not appeal but noted that the court had ruled that there had been a “serious conspiracy” and that three of Mr Villepin’s co-defendants were found guilty.
Nonetheless, Mr Villepin – who has positioned himself as a voice of opposition to Mr Sarkozy on the Gaullist right – accused the president of being behind the prosecutor’s announcement.
The long-running Clearstream affair dates back to 2004, when a list emerged purportedly containing the names of politicians, businessmen and journalists who held secret bank accounts at the Luxembourg bank of that name. 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 had said 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 denied this. His acquittal clears the way for him to challenge Mr Sarkozy for the presidency in 2012. In recent months he has been in campaign mode, touring the country.
After Thursday’s verdicts he said he was now looking to “serve the French people”.