French police searched Nicolas Sarkozy’s offices and home Tuesday as part of their probe into claims the former president was involved in illegal political campaign financing, his lawyer said. Magistrates are investigating claims that staff for Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics empire and France’s richest woman, gave envelopes stuffed with cash to Sarkozy aides to finance his 2007 campaign. Around ten police officers accompanied investigating magistrate Jean-Michel Gentil on the raid on his home and on offices he has recently rented in Paris, a source close to the enquiry said. Sarkozy’s lawyer Thierry Herzog said that the president, who was defeated in his re-election bid in May by the Socialist Francois Hollande, is currently in Canada with his family. Le Monde newspaper’s website said that investigators had also searched the lawyers’ offices where Sarkozy was once an associate. Sarkozy, who has denied any wrongdoing and whose presidential immunity from prosecution expired last month, has supplied his diary to judges to disprove claims from witnesses that he attended meetings in the Bettencourt household. The witnesses, whose testimony was reported in the French press, claimed that Sarkozy held meetings on at least two occasions in the Bettencourt home ahead of his presidential election win in 2007.
