FORMER French first lady Carla Bruni has been accused of several corruption crimes that could land her in prison.
The supermodel, 56, was part of a criminal conspiracy to cover up her husband, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, 69, over allegations he accepted millions in cash from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
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On Tuesday, a judicial source in Paris said Bruni was being prosecuted for “witness tampering and fraud in an organized gang” after being questioned at length by examining magistrates throughout the day.
Both crimes are punishable by up to 10 years, with sentences going up to 20 years with aggravating circumstances, such as gang membership.
Bruni is accused of being part of a £4 million campaign called “Operation Save Sarko” – a complex and illegal plan to try to keep Sarkozy, who is already a convicted criminal, out of a prison cell.
The supermodel was reportedly “placed under judicial supervision and banned from contacting everyone involved in the case” except her husband, the source told AFP.
Bail conditions will be in effect until Bruni appears at a criminal trial.
There were no initial comments from the former first lady, who has been cooperating with agents from the French Central Office for Combating Corruption and Financial and Tax Administrative Offenses.
Bruni is a close friend of Mimi Marchand – a French mediator who was placed under formal investigation for alleged “witness tampering” and “criminal corruption” in the same case.
Marchand, 77 and nicknamed “The Queen of the Paparazzi”, is accused of paying former French-Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, 74, to drop a will that he got millions of dollars from the colonel Gaddafi were paid to Sarkozy.
In an interview published in Paris Match magazine four years ago, Takieddine retracted his claim that suitcases full of cash had been handed over to Sarkozy’s colleagues.
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The money was allegedly used to finance the 2007 election campaign, which saw Sarkozy win his first and only term as President of France.
Sarkozy allegedly used the 2020 interview to falsely claim he had been cleared because “the truth has come out.”
But prosecutors say Marchand — who also denies any wrongdoing — offered Takieddine incentives to change his story.
“Operation Save Sarko” is running in parallel with the Libyan finance case, in which Sarkozy has already been indicted.
Takieddine, who is currently in Lebanon, is said to have been paid the equivalent of up to £4 million to “change his story”, according to prosecution allegations.
Bruni has always denied any involvement in “Operation Save Sarko”, saying she tries to avoid legal proceedings involving her husband, who has two criminal convictions to date.
She said: “When people talk to me about this, I get angry and indignant and it doesn’t help my husband.”
Bruni added: “I’m not at all curious about my husband’s affairs.”
But detectives say Bruni deleted all messages he exchanged with Marchand on the encrypted Signal app before Marchand’s indictment in June 2021.
It also emerged that when Marchand traveled to Beirut to see Takieddine in October 2020, at the height of the global Covid crisis, Bruni helped “fix” a positive medical test for her.
“It is alleged that this would help Marchand in the Save Sarko operation,” said an investigative source.
One of Bruni’s bodyguards sent her a message at the time, saying: “Madam, this is a resolved matter for Tuesday morning, 48 hours before your departure for Lebanon.”
According to investigative news website Mediapart, Sarkozy himself told detectives back in October: “My wife helps Mrs Marchand while doing her friend a favor so she can travel.”
Sarkozy continued: “You ask me if Carla Bruni knew about the trip to Lebanon? Yes, I can’t dispute that, but did she know that Mr. Takieddine was sentenced to prison? No. Did she know that he had fled, or was he in Beirut? No. .”
Like Marchand, Takieddine is said to have several celebrity connections and has even claimed to be Amal Clooney’s uncle.
During negotiations with the French courts in April 2014, Takieddine asked for a supervision order to be lifted so that he could attend a party in London in honor of the wedding of his “niece”, then called Amal Alamuddin, to American actor George Clooney .
Takieddine has cited his family relationship with Amal Clooney – who was born in Beirut – on several occasions since then, although Ms Clooney has not confirmed this.
Sarkozy has been accused of corruption, illicit financing of an election campaign, receiving embezzled public funds and criminal conspiracy in relation to the Gaddafi scandal, and is expected to stand trial next year.
Three of his former ministers – Brice Hortefeux, Claude Guéant and Éric Woerth – are also under investigation.
In January, Sarkozy failed to overturn a criminal conviction and prison sentence for illegally financing his re-election campaign.
His lawyers asked the Paris Court of Appeal to revoke the one-year prison sentence, with six months suspended, but the judges decided not to.
It followed a five-week trial at the city’s Correctional Court three years ago, when Sarkozy was found guilty of fiddling with the books during his failed 2012 bid to become head of state.
Sarkozy, who was president of France for five years until 2012, served his sentence using an electronic tag in the Paris home he shares with Bruni.
In March 2021, Sarkozy was also convicted of corruption and influence peddling and sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended.
Sarkozy’s conservative predecessor as President of France, the late Jacques Chirac, received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption, but this is related to his time as Mayor of Paris.
The last French head of state to go to a prison cell was Marshal Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.
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