PARIS: Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, died Tuesday aged 75, two days before the verdict in the ex-head of state’s trial, his lawyer said.
Takieddine died in the morning in the Lebanese capital Beirut, his French lawyer Elize Arfi told AFP.
Takieddine, a key figure in the case, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($6 million)in cash from Qaddafi to Sarkozy and the former president’s chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy attends a ceremony in tribute to late policewoman Aurelie Fouquet, killed during a robbery attempt followed by a deadly chase in 2010, in Villiers-sur-Marne, on the outskirts of Paris, on May 20, 2025. (AFP)
But in 2020, Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, prompting accusations that Sarkozy and close allies paid the witness to change his mind, something they have always denied.
