PARIS (AP) – Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy defended himself Thursday against the “mad allegations” that he accepted millions of euros in illegal campaign funding from the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
“It’s an ignominious act, not (just) a lie,” Sarkozy said during a live television interview on French station TF1. “I owe the French people the truth: I never betrayed their trust.”
The one-term ex-leader was handed preliminary charges Wednesday in an investigation of his successful 2007 campaign for the French presidency. The charges include illegally funding the campaign, passive corruption and receiving money from Libyan embezzlement.
“I’m not above the law, but I’m not below it either,” Sarkozy, 63, said during the TF1 interview.
He was detained and questioned by anticorruption police before he was given the preliminary charges by judges leading the probe. Le Figaro newspaper reported Thursday that Sarkozy said in his statement to the investigating judges that “I am accused without any physical evidence.”