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French investigative magistrates on Friday, August 25, ordered former president Nicolas Sarkozy and 12 others to go on trial on charges that his 2007 presidential campaign received millions in illegal financing from the government of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The national financial prosecutor, Jean-François Bohnert, announced that the decade-long investigation has been formally closed. The trial will run from January to April 2025, the statement said. The case is the biggest and most shocking of multiple corruption investigations involving Sarkozy. He has been convicted in two others. He denies wrongdoing in all cases.
In the Libya case, he is charged with illegal campaign financing, embezzling, passive corruption and related counts.
Sarkozy has been under investigation in the Libya case since 2013. Investigators examined claims that Gadhafi’s government secretly gave Sarkozy €50 million for his winning 2007 campaign.