Former French PM files suit against Sarkozy

France`s ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday filed suit against Nicolas Sarkozy after the President called him and other defendants in a smear trial "guilty", a judicial official said.

Paris: France`s ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday filed suit against Nicolas Sarkozy after the President called him and other defendants in a smear trial "guilty", a judicial official said.
Villepin accuses Sarkozy of violating his right to presumption of innocence when he said in a television interview last week that the "guilty parties" in the so-called Clearstream affair were on trial.

Under French law, the head of state enjoys immunity from legal action and the suit would in theory only be heard once Sarkozy is out of office.

France`s most politically charged trial in years opened last week with Villepin and four other defendants accused of taking part in a plot hatched in 2003-04 to smear Sarkozy
and derail his bid for the presidency.

Villepin and Sarkozy were then bitter rivals in the struggle for the governing right-wing party`s nomination to succeed president Jacques Chirac.

The case centres on a list -- later proved to have been fabricated -- of account holders at the Clearstream financial clearing house in Luxembourg who allegedly took bribes from the sale of French warships to Taiwan.

"After a two-year investigation, two independent investigating judges ruled that the guilty parties should be tried before a criminal court," Sarkozy said during the interview on French television on Wednesday.

Bureau Report

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