Clearstream trial: Villepin cleared

FORMER French prime minister Dominique de Villepin has been cleared of attempting to smear Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of the 2007 presidential elections.

Villepin was the most high-profile figure among five defendants accused of orchestrating a campaign in 2004 to leak a forged list of people alleged to have received bribes on the sale of French warships to Taiwan. Sarkozy’s name featured on the fake list, along with interior minister Brice Hortefeux and International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The president registered as a civil claimant in the case in 2006 to secure his right to seek damages.

The court ruled today that there was no evidence that Villepin had acted in bad faith or deliberately ordered the smear campaign.

Villepin told the hearing in Paris last October that he was not involved in any plot and categorically denied sending the list of names knowing it had been forged. He argued that he was the victim of an abuse of power and had been hung up “with a butcher’s hook” by Sarkozy, who as well as being one of the 39 claimants in the case is also the head of the French justice system. However the judges ruled today that Sarkozy had every right to be a claimant in the case.

During the one-month hearing last October - dubbed the political trial of the decade - prosecutors said Villepin had been an “accomplice” in the affair and called for an 18-month suspended sentence and a €45,000 fine.

The ringleader of the smear attempt, Jean-Louis Gergorin, then vice-president of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), was today found guilty of false accusation, receiving stolen goods and abuse of confidence. His accomplice at EADS, Imad Lahoud, was also found guilty of forgery.

Former accountant Florian Bourges was found guilty of abuse of confidence. Journalist Denis Robert, another defendant in the case, was cleared.