It wasn't a comfortable position to be in, but Brice Hortefeux obviously preferred to be seen as a fool rather than a culprit. Although the French former interior minister preferred the term "Candide" – a reference to the eponymous naïve hero of Voltaire's novel – he had a hard time justifying his trip to Tripoli and his covert meeting with the boss of the Libyan terrorists on Wednesday, January 22, the eighth day of the trial on the allegations that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had financed ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign.

Hortefeux, the local authorities minister at the time, had gone to Libya in 2005, for "a follow-up visit," after then-interior minister Sarkozy's prior trip to Tripoli. "I wasn't seeking anything, this trip had no importance for me," he said, adding: "I wasn't in a hurry, for that matter, so I didn't rush there." He had, indeed, been invited on October 20, 2005, had considered going in mid-November, and eventually made the trip on December 21, "because on December 21, there's a lull" at the ministry.

The National Financial Prosecutor's Office had a different interpretation of the postponement. According to him, Claude Guéant, Sarkozy's chief of staff, had traveled to Tripoli on September 30, 2005, alone, on a "preparatory visit," and had secretly met Abdullah al-Senoussi, the man responsible for the 1989 terrorist attack on the UTA DC-10 flight that killed 170 people, including 54 French nationals.

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