Former French premier Villepin, in his big day in court, denies plot to smear Sarkozy

France’s Villepin denies plot to smear Sarkozy

PARIS — Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin denied orchestrating a plot to discredit President Nicolas Sarkozy, in much-awaited testimony Wednesday that is central to a slander trial pitting the two political rivals against each other.

Calmly and methodically, Villepin — famed for a 2003 speech at the United Nations arguing against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq — laid out his defense in what the French have dubbed the Clearstream trial.

It was Villepin’s big day in the monthlong trial, his first and main chance to try to fend off charges of complicity in slander and forgery that could jeopardize his political career.

Villepin is the star defendant. The star plaintiff is Sarkozy.

The trial centers on mysterious lists circulating in 2004 that claimed to show clients with secret accounts at the Luxembourg clearing house Clearstream, including Sarkozy and other leading political and business figures. The accounts purportedly had been created to store kickbacks from the sale of warships to Taiwan, among other shady income.

The lists were leaked to the media, before investigators determined they had been faked.

Sarkozy says it was all a smear campaign to thwart his bid to be elected president in 2007 — and filed suit saying he believed Villepin was “the primary instigator” behind it. At the time, both men were leading conservative contenders to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.

A key question in the trial is what Villepin knew about the lists and when. The presiding judge asked Villepin on Wednesday if he was aware that someone had sent the lists to judges to investigate them in April 2004.

“No,” replied Villepin.

He has said he never saw the lists himself, and said Wednesday he didn’t know where they came from.

Villepin said he was not behind any plot targeting Sarkozy and that “at no moment was the name of Nicolas Sarkozy mentioned” in initial discussions of the lists involving Villepin and other officials in January 2004. Villepin says he first heard Sarkozy’s name was on them from a July 2004 magazine report.

Villepin’s detached poise cracked briefly when he was questioned by Sarkozy’s lawyer. Villepin accused Sarkozy of intervening with the Justice Ministry during the investigation and quipped that the whole case had been built up to feed Sarkozy’s “determination to destroy a political adversary.”

Sarkozy has not hid his feelings about the trial. Last week, he referred on national television to the five defendants as “guilty” — prompting Villepin’s lawyers to take legal action against the president for allegedly violating the presumption of innocence.

In Wednesday’s testimony, Villepin denied suggestions that his mentor and ally Chirac was involved in the Clearstream affair, testifying that he “never had any presidential instructions from Jacques Chirac in this case.” Chirac has denied wrongdoing and refused to testify.

Two leading defendants have already testified. Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former vice president at Airbus parent company EADS, has said he sent the lists to the investigating judge. Gergorin told the court he was unaware the lists were bogus at the time, and that he was duped by a well-connected computer expert, Imad Lahoud, alleged to be the one who falsified the lists.

Gergorin told the court he remains “convinced of the total good faith of Mr. de Villepin.”

About 20 witnesses are testifying in the trial, which began Sept. 21 and runs through Oct. 23.