Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was being held in police custody on Tuesday for questioning by magistrates looking into allegations of Libyan funding for his 2007 election campaign, an official in the French judiciary said. A lawyer for Mr Sarkozy could not be reached immediately for comment. Mr Sarkozy, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, has always denied receiving any illicit campaign funding and has dismissed the Libyan allegations as “grotesque”. In January a French businessman suspected by investigators of funnelling money from Gadafy to finance Mr Sarkozy’s campaign was arrested in Britain and granted bail after he appeared in a London court. Mr Sarkozy has already been ordered to stand trial in a separate matter concerning financing of his failed re-election campaign in 2012, when he was defeated by Francois Hollande.

Source: The Irish Times March 20, 2018 09:00 UTC