PARIS: A probe into alleged illegal campaign funding linked to a deadly 2002 Pakistan bombing drew closer to Nicolas Sarkozy, on Wednesday, with the French presidentÂ’s best man and a former aide detained. Investigators are examining an alleged system whereby money paid in arms sales commissions - legal at the time - were channelled back into the illegal funding of political activities in France.
It is alleged that a bombing in Karachi that killed 11 French engineers in 2002 was revenge for the cancellation of commissions promised to officials involved in the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Magistrates are probing whether arms kickbacks were used to finance the 1994-95 presidential campaign of then-prime minister Edouard Balladur, whose budget minister and campaign spokesman was Sarkozy.
The police, on Wednesday, detained and questioned BalladurÂ’s then-cabinet chief and presidential campaign manager Nicolas Bazire over the alleged illegal party financing, a judicial source said. SarkozyÂ’s communications advisor until the mid-1990s, Thierry Gaubert, is due to be questioned on Wednesday by a magistrate after he was detained for questioning on Monday. Investigators are probing links between Gaubert and Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who was charged last week with fraud over two arms contracts with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in which he was allegedly middleman.