Did Nicolas Sarkozy send two lawyers to Libya to find a way to lift the international arrest warrant of Abdullah al-Senoussi, who was sentenced in absentia by a French court to life imprisonment in 1999 for the 1989 attack on the UTA DC-10 that killed 170 people? Following testimony from the victims' families during the trial over suspected Libyan financing of Sarozy's 2007 presidential campaign, the court asked the former French president that very question on Thursday, January 23. He clearly answered "no" and suggested that if this trip had indeed taken place in 2005, the two lawyers would most likely have been sent by Jacques Chirac, the president at the time.
According to the prosecution, the sequence is crystal clear. No one denies that the fate of al-Senoussi, Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law and head of military intelligence, was of concern to the Libyans. Ziad Takieddine, the French-Lebanese intermediary in charge of al-Senoussi's interests, organized the first secret visit of Claude Guéant, Sarkozy's chief of staff at the interior ministry, to Libya, where he discreetly met the convict on October 1, 2005. That much has been proven.
Sarkozy then met with the Libyan leader on October 6, 2005, and al-Senoussi's case was brought up. However, Sarkozy says he replied that the matter was outside his authority as minister. He demonstrated to the court that he had never been alone with Gaddafi. Sarkozy argued that the "corruption pact" he is accused of having formed that day – Libyan financing in exchange for something in return, including al-Senoussi's pardon – was a figment of the imagination.
Next episode: In November 2005, Sarkozy's friend Brice Hortefeux, then the French minister for local authorities, was scheduled to visit Libya, a visit that appeared to be somewhat vague both at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the French Embassy. In the end, he only traveled there on December 21, and met al-Senoussi discreetly at his home. Why this postponement? "Because there was no urgency," replied Hortefeux, and because he had time available just before Christmas. What's more disturbing is that the postponement of the trip and these visits were planned by Takieddine, in notes delivered – admittedly, to harm him – by his ex-wife.
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