The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office is accused of having tapped several major criminal lawyers to identify, in vain, the identity of a possible “mole” in the so-called “wiretapping” case, where the former President of the Republic is implicated.
After the Fillon case, the Kohler case, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) is again implicated, this time in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy’s wiretapping. The PNF investigated, in vain, between 2014 and 2019, in particular via surreptitious investigations on tenors of the Paris bar, to identify the possible “mole” who would have informed Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog that they were tapped , found Point (paid item) Wednesday June 24. The PNF notably peeled the fadettes (detailed telephone bills) of the lawyers Eric Dupond-Moretti, Jean Veil, Jacqueline Laffont, Pierre Haïk, Hervé Témime or Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard. Franceinfo retraces the underside of these revelations and the reactions they generated.
What is the “wiretapping affair”?
It is also called the “Paul Bismuth” case, from the name used to open the telephone line thanks to which Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog at the start of 2014 were able to converse secretly. “I feared, with reason, savage eavesdropping or illegal eavesdropping, and I made sure that I could converse with Nicolas Sarkozy without being listened to, I was unfortunately right to do so”, justified the lawyer in 2014. Paul Bismuth was, in reality, the assumed name of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Justice discovered the existence of this line, before tapping it. This surveillance led the PNF to suspect the former resident of the Elysée palace of trying to obtain secret information concerning a procedure on the sidelines of the Bettencourt affair (in which he was dismissed). The former president is suspected of having requested this information from the former high magistrate at the Court of Cassation, Gilbert Azibert, in exchange for a boost for a post in Monaco. However, Nicolas Sarkozy ultimately never interfered in favor of Gilbert Azibert.
This flip-flop alerted the PNF which, in addition to the main investigation for “corruption” and “influence peddling”, therefore discreetly conducted a parallel investigation to try to identify, in vain, the “mole” likely to have informed the former President of the Republic and his lawyer that they were being tapped. The existence of this investigation was known (and long denounced by the defense of the former president and his counsel), but not its content nor the extent of the surveillance of all these lawyers. Opened on March 4, 2014 for “violation of professional secrecy”, it was classified without follow-up in December 2019, advance Point.
In the wiretapping case (Sarkozy-Herzog-Azibert), the PNF denounced methods worthy of “seasoned offenders” in its indictment published in October 2017. According to the PNF magistrates, the “there are sufficient charges against Nicolas Sarkozy and Thierry Herzog for committing the acts of active bribery and trading in influence for which they have been charged”, reported The world, who had access to the indictment. The PNF requested that the two men be returned to correctional.
Why are we talking about fadettes?
According to Point, the investigators of the Central Office for Combating Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff), a service of the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police, have for a while sifted through the detailed telephone bills (“fadettes”) of the tenors of the abovementioned bar association and their collaborators, but also of a magistrate or fixed lines of the PNF. Some lawyers have even been geolocated.
Objective: find the possible mole within the judiciary which would have informed one of these people of the existence of eavesdropping on Nicolas Sarkozy and Thierry Herzog. All these people were in telephone contact with the lawyer for the former head of state on February 25, 2014, the day he and Nicolas Sarkozy, according to investigators, understood that the famous telephone line “Paul Bismuth” was being tapped. . “Requesting ‘fadettes’ is legally possible in a preliminary investigation without the law imposing to inform the president of the bar”, commented the PNF.
How do lawyers react?
These revelations ulcerated the lawyers concerned on Thursday. “There is not only an invasion of privacy as there would be for any litigant, but also an attack on my professional secrecy. And this without authorization, and especially without any motivation. It is madness! “, reacted to franceinfo Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard. For the lawyers of Nicolas Sarkozy, Thierry Herzog and Gilbert Azibert, the failure of these investigations testifies to the conceit of the prosecutions which are worth a lawsuit to their customers for “corruption”, “influence peddling” and “violation of professional secrecy” . The scale of the investigations to find the supposed “mole” “shows the desperate aspect of the procedure, we are going to search to the end of the world for evidence that does not exist, all this to lead to a statement of failure and hide it from the defense”, assured Paul-Albert Iweins, lawyer for Thierry Herzog, to AFP.
Jacqueline Laffont, one of Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyers in the “wiretapping” affair, announced on Friday RTL having asked the Keeper of the Seals, Nicole Belloubet to conduct a “general inspection” targeting the PNF. She calls for lifting the gray areas “on all the questions raised by this investigation, on all the dysfunctions, on all the excesses “, she assured. Eric Dupont-Moretti’s reaction was one of the most virulent. “I am amazed, flabbergasted that we could rummage in my private life, in my intimate life, in my professional life by peeling fadettes for fifteen days, by geolocating me. In addition, we knew where I was moving”, he said to Franceinfo.
It is unheard of in a secret investigation that I qualify as darling.at franceinfo
If he admits having called the lawyer Thierry Herzog, the day when justice thinks that an informant had contacted the counsel of Nicolas Sarkozy to tell him that he was tapped, Eric Dupont-Moretti assures that he will not has not spoken. “There is no mole. And if there is a mole, it is not me because I did not have Thierry online and the police know it perfectly“, he insisted. On the other hand, he is surprised that the PNF was able to access its” fadettes “without the consent of the barrister of Paris and with impunity.
The president of the bar, lawyer Olivier Cousi, said on Thursday on Franceinfo that he was going to undertake a “legal action against the state”. “What strikes me as completely surprising is the length of these actions, their hidden nature and the fact that they are not motivated by any valid reason “, he said. “We’ve never seen that, he concluded, (…) there, it is said that all the penalists in Paris, because they are penalists, are necessarily perpetrators of offenses. It’s still quite amazing. “
What is the reaction of the political class?
Nicolas Sarkozy asked Thursday on Twitter that “all the truth” is “established on the circumstances which allowed this incredible accumulation of failures and dysfunctions”. “In reaction to the revelations from Le Point, I only express one request: respect for the rule of law”, he said.
In response to revelations from the @LePoint , I only express one request: respect for the rule of law. Consequently, all the truth must be established on the circumstances which allowed this improbable accumulation of failures and dysfunctions. NS
– Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) June 25, 2020
In its wake, the camp of the Republicans also reacted. Former Keeper of the Seals Rachida Dati, LR candidate for mayor of Paris, estimated on RTL that the PNF “became a pharmacy” and recalled the “reluctance” magistrates during its creation “because some feared it would be an armed wing of political justice”. “There are too many cases coming out, too many dysfunctions appearing” and, “either we have transparency on what happened, or there will be a definitive distrust of justice”, she added. On the left, the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, said that “the rule of law presupposes that any defendant – Nicolas Sarkozy understood – be respected in its prerogatives and rights “, without any “specific special treatment “.
Arrested by the lawyer of Nicolas Sarkozy, the Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet asked Friday to the Attorney General of Paris “a detailed report on the precise nature” of the investigation of the national financial parquet. The report will focus “in particular on the terms of the requisitions made, their extent and their duration”, indicates the Keeper of the Seals in a press release. “She will assess whether an inspection should be carried out”, according to this ratio which must “allow to verify if the national financial prosecutor acted within the framework of the provisions of the code of criminal procedure”.
What consequences can these revelations have?
The affair comes at a time when the national financial prosecutor’s office, created under the presidency of François Hollande, is already the subject of sharp criticism. A few days ago, Eliane Houlette, the first to have directed the PNF, claimed to have suffered “pressures” procedures on the part of the Attorney General in the conduct of the Fillon case. Statements interpreted by the camp of the former presidential candidate as an admission of political pressure to bring down their champion. More recently, the PNF has been criticized for classification without following an investigation against the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, suspected of conflicts of interest.
Faced with criticism, the financial prosecutor, Jean-François Bohnert, spoke in an interview with AFP Friday to ensure that the PNF “never dispenses with respecting the rule of law”.
In all the cases he deals with, [le PNF] strictly complies with the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure and uses, without exceeding them, the prerogatives that the law recognizes for prosecutors, and therefore the PNF.à l’AFP
According to the President of Paris, these revelations are “a completely decisive and new element”. But the legal action against the state that he will launch “will be independent of the Sarkozy trial”. “We are bringing an action against the State responsible for having infringed the professional secrecy of lawyers, their privacy, their privacy, this case will not be linked to the criminal case which is in question”, assured Olivier Cousi. The trial of Nicolas Sarkozy, which was originally scheduled to take place in October, will finally take place from November 23 to December 10.
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