France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy (C), with his son Louis Sarkozy (rear top), after a signing event for his new book 'Diary of a Prisoner' in Menton, southeastern France, on December 12, 2025. VALERY HACHE / AFP
French prosecutors on Tuesday, December 16, said they were seeking indictments against former president Nicolas Sarkozy, his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and nine others in an alleged witness-tampering case.
The possible indictment concerns the sudden retraction of Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of the former head of state, in a case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Takieddine, who died in late September, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($6 million) in cash from Kadhafi to Sarkozy and the former president's chief of staff in 2006 and 2007. 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.
France's national financial prosecutor's office said in a statement it was requesting the indictment of Sarkozy on charges of "criminal conspiracy to commit fraud as part of an organized gang" and "concealment of witness tampering."
