Case penalties: Nicolas Sarkozy assisted witness – BBC

After five hours for a hearing by the investigating judges, former president avoids indictment.

Five hours of hearings and ultimately assisted witness status. After the euphoria of the election victory of the right, on Sunday, departmental elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, once again, found Wednesday before the investigating judges. But they have given up a new indictment on the issue of penalties for exceeding campaign expenses. A source of satisfaction for the former president, who was summoned to be indicted by judges Renaud Van Ruymbeke and René Grouman.

For his lawyer Thierry Herzog, interviewed at the exit of the hearing of Nicolas Sarkozy, “the debate is now closed and it is the last act should logically lead to a dismissal.” The production of a number of documents, which have been admitted late, would have played in favor of the current president of the UMP.

The case concerns the payment by the UMP late October 2013, the sanctions against Nicolas Sarkozy for exceeding the ceiling – € 22.5 million – of its expenses during the presidential campaign lost in 2012.

The rejection of Auditors private UMP repayment over 10 million campaign costs. But the Constitutional Council had also ordered the candidate Sarkozy restitution to the State a lump sum of 153,000 euros and had imposed a penalty of 363,615 euros, corresponding to the delay recorded.

At the time , to bail out, the UMP, heavily indebted, had launched a large subscription to its members, called by some the “Sarkothon”. These are the gifts that were used to repay the penalties due to exceeding the campaign costs.

For the judges, the fact that the UMP has taken over the past could have been a breach of trust because penalties aimed Nicolas Sarkozy himself and the money the party would have been diverted its advantage, making the UMP the main victim. But it was necessary that the damage existed.

But the defense has produced a report by Finexsi expert at the Court of Cassation and showing that at the end of Sarkothon and after payment of 11.2 million for the reimbursement and the various penalties, the UMP would have enriched 800,000 euros. The defense also argued the legality of the payment of penalties by a third party. On one hand, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights affirms that sanction imposed by an administrative authority is not a fine and may be paid by a third party. On the other hand, the note of the Director of Public Finance at Bercy valid by mail, in October, the transfer made by the UMP, September 30, 2013: “The payment of money issued at the expense of Nicolas Sarkozy seems therefore related with the statutory purpose of the UMP. “A missing piece of the file during the preliminary investigation and the opening of the criminal investigation, but even more decisive than it might have escaped the patron of Bercy, Michel Sapin.