Key events that led to major French slander trial involving rivals Sarkozy and Villepin

Key events that led to major French slander trial

Some key events in the scandal known as the Clearstream affair that comes to trial Monday in Paris:

January 2004: Then-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin asks a retired general to investigate lists naming people alleged to have secret accounts with Luxembourg clearing house Clearstream used to hold bribes.

May 2004: An investigating judge receives anonymous computer disks containing the lists, which include the name of Nicolas Sarkozy, then a government minister. The judge later determines the list was faked.

September 2004: The Paris prosecutor opens a judicial inquiry into slander, to try to determine where the lists came from and who knew about them.

January 2006: Sarkozy becomes a plaintiff in the case, says the lists were part of a smear campaign.

April 2006: Investigators search offices of Airbus parent EADS, the DGSE intelligence agency and the Defense Ministry as part of the probe.

June 2006: Former EADS vice president Jean-Louis Gergorin says he sent the lists to the judge. He is handed preliminary slander charges.

June 2007: Villepin ally Jacques Chirac, weeks after leaving the French presidency to Sarkozy, refuses to testify in the case.

July 2007: Villepin is hit with preliminary charges of “complicity to slanderous denunciation,” complicity to forgery and dealing in stolen goods. Villepin denies wrongdoing.

November 2008: Villepin, Gergorin, computer expert Imad Lahoud, author Denis Robert and accountant Florian Bourges are ordered to stand trial.

Sept. 21, 2009: Trial to open in Paris court.