6.5M-euro fund transfer from Gaddafi to Sarkozy, fresh evidence claims

French presidential candidate and former President Nicolas Sarkozy received funds of up to 6.5 million euros from ousted strongman Muammar Gaddafi to finance his presidential campaign in 2017, French online news service Mediapart confirmed, stating that a notebook belonging to former Libyan Prime Minister and Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem contains proof that Sarkozy took Libyan money.

The diary, which belonged to Ghanem (found dead in Vienna in 2012), was reportedly found floating in the Danube River in Austria, specifying payments made to Sarkozy. The notebook is now in the hands of French Prosecutor Serge Tournaire, who is investigating Sarkozy.

According to Mediapart, the payments were made in three tranches. It cited a meeting dated April 29, 2007, in which Bashir Saleh, a former Gaddafi aide is said to have transferred 1.5 million euros to Sarkozy. A further 3 million euros was allegedly transferred by one of Gaddafi's sons.

A judicial inquiry was opened in 2013 after Lebanese-French businessman Ziad Takieddine alleged that he had secretly carried 1.5 million euros to France after the fall of Gaddafi.

Former French President Sarkozy, along with former British Prime Minister David Cameron have been sharply criticized for pursuing an "opportunist policy of regime change" that led to the "political and economic collapse" of Libya in a key British parliamentary committee report released in early September. Cameron's 2011 decision, along with his French counterpart Sarkozy to intervene militarily in Libya was misguided and helped give rise to Daish in North Africa, the Chilcot report stated. France and Britain led an international coalition in a series of airstrikes against Gaddafi in March 2011. The oil-rich North African country descended into chaos after the Western intervention, and parts of it have become a bastion for Daish, giving the militants a new base even as its territory in Syria and Iraq shrinks under constant assault. After the ouster and subsequent killing of Gaddafi in 2011, the army disintegrated, and the central government has gradually lost its power without having much effect on the ongoing violent clashes.