The former Minister Claude Gueant indicted for his Flemish paintings – L’Observateur

Paris (AFP) – Claude Gueant was set Saturday Review, judges questioning the sale of Flemish paintings to a Malaysian lawyer, alleged to explain a transfer of 500,000 euros received on his behalf from Malaysia <. / p>

These investigations are carried out under an initially open investigation after financing charges by Libya of Muammar Gaddafi’s presidential campaign in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, including Claude Gueant then the prisoners .

But in the eyes of Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, counsel for Claude Gueant, this “dossier presented as staggering,” “deflates quite” despite the indictment of his client to tax evasion and money laundering by an organized fake and forgery, a judicial source said.

During his 30 hours of custody, “essentially he was asked almost 300 questions that were this so-called Libyan financing “of the presidential campaign, noted the lawyer. But instead of acts of corruption related to these financing suspicions, “was a record that simply reduces to justify the purchase of two tables there is 22 and their reality and possibly their tax return “according to the lawyer added that his client denied any offense.

The former top cop in France is subject to judicial review prohibiting him from traveling to Malaysia and contact Some people, including a Saudi businessman, Khalid Ali Bugshan, also put in Saturday Review, for tax evasion laundering by organized gangs, according to a judicial source.

Forbidden to leave French territory subject to bail of one million euros, Mr. Bugshan is believed to have played a role in the financial flows that led to the payment of 500,000 euros to the account of Claude Gueant.

One -C this transfer was justified by the sale in 2008 to a Malaysian lawyer of two marine a Flemish painter of the seventeenth, Andries van Eertvelt. But experts have questioned the value of these works

-. Sawari II –

According to a source close to the investigation, Mr. Bugshan is believed to have paid 500,000 euros on behalf of a Malaysian company that would have then paid to the account of Claude Gueant.

The Paris financial judges launched an international commission in Malaysia, but have had no response. And the lawyer who, according to Claude Gueant, has acquired the paintings, seems as elusive as the works.

The man’s name Saudi businessman is not unknown to the French justice . He was particularly apparent in another political-financial investigation, the so-called Karachi on financing of the presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur over alleged kickbacks on arms deal with Saudi Arabia, Sawari II.

The investigation that is his indictment Claude Gueant, was born accusations of Gaddafi officials who said in 2011, without providing evidence, that Nicolas Sarkozy had received funding from Libya Gaddafi for his 2007 campaign.

Opened in April 2013 including “active and passive corruption” and “influence peddling”, it was left to judges Serge Tournaire and René Grouman.

The entourage Mr Gueant noted the vexatious nature of the conditions of detention of Claude Gueant with sending at the dawn of police at the home of former interior minister Friday. He also suggested that the survey was subject to political manipulation before the cantonal.

This is his third custody after those ordered in cases of arbitration Tapie and bonuses liquid he perceived when he was director Nicolas Sarkozy’s office at the Interior Ministry.

In this case, the national financial prosecutor will soon decide to take no action, to designate judges or to call Claude Gueant correctional. As for the case of arbitration, it is not subject to any prosecution.