Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been arrested
for allegedly receiving £42million in illegal payments from the late Libyan
dictator Colonel Gaddafi.
The 63-year-old was arrested by judicial police in Paris
and taken to their headquarters in the suburb of Nanterre.
Sarkozy is said to have received the kickbacks in 2007,
during the presidential election campaign that swept him to power for a single
five-year term.
French law bans candidates from receiving cash payments
above £6,300, but the massive donation is said to have been laundered through
bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland.
Sarkozy is now under huge pressure to explain himself in
the light of what his opponents called compelling evidence, and faces
corruption charges over the next 48 hours.
A document made public in Paris is said to show that the
French leader and the former Libyan dictator made an illegal financial deal.
Written in Arabic and signed by Mussa Kussa, Gaddafi's
intelligence chief, in 2006, it refers to an 'agreement in principle to support
the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy,
for a sum equivalent to €50million'.
A bundle of incriminating evidence was originally leaked by
senior members of Libya's National Transitional Council to French investigative
news site Mediapart. daily mail
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