Paris: Muammar Gaddafi’s regime agreed to fund French President Nicolas Sarkozy`s 2007 election campaign to the tune of USD 66.3 million, a news website reported today, publishing what it said was documentary evidence.
The 2006 document in Arabic, which website Mediapart said was signed by Kadhafi`s intelligence chief Mussa Kussa, referred to an "agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50 million euros."
The left-wing investigative website made similar assertions on March 12, based on testimony by a former doctor of a French arms dealer alleged to have arranged the campaign donation, which Sarkozy slammed as "grotesque."
"If he had financed it, I wasn`t very grateful," Sarkozy said sarcastically, in an apparent reference to the active role that France played in the NATO campaign that led to the strongman`s ouster.
The latest report comes as Sarkozy trails Socialist rival Francois Hollande in opinion polls ahead of the run-off second round of presidential elections on May 6.
PTI