Sarkozy’s home, offices raided by investigators

PARIS: French investigators searched former President Nicolas Sarkozy's home and office yesterday as part of a probe into suspected illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by the L'Oreal cosmetics heiress, an official said.
Potential legal troubles have threatened Sarkozy since he lost the presidency to Socialist Francois Hollande in May elections. Sarkozy, who lost his immunity from prosecution June 15, denies wrongdoing.
Judge Jean-Michel Gentil and other investigators from the Paris financial crimes unit conducted yesterday's search of Sarkozy's home and offices, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be publicly named discussing an ongoing investigation.
Messages left with Sarkozy's staff were not immediately returned.
The probe centers on the finances of France's richest woman, L'Oreal cosmetics heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
A long-running family feud over her fortune ballooned in 2010 into a multi-layered investigation and political affair. Allegations emerged that Bettencourt provided illegal campaign cash to Sarkozy's party during the 2007 campaign. Sarkozy vigorously denies the claims. The allegations struck a chord with Sarkozy's critics, who were frustrated with Sarkozy's handling of the recession-hit economy and saw him as too cozy with the rich.
Separately, French authorities have arrested the administrator of an extremist French website who is suspected of playing a key role in financing and recruiting for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in several countries, the Paris prosecutor's office said yesterday.
The announcement was unusually dramatic for French authorities, but it did not spell out what evidence has been culled or how much money may have been involved. It is the first publicly announced suspected terrorist arrest since President Francois Hollande took office in May.
The suspect — whom prosecutors call a "formidable financier of the bloodiest terrorist groups" — was being questioned yesterday by anti-terrorism judge Marc Trevidic in Paris. The man faces preliminary charges of planning terrorist acts and financing a terrorist enterprise, the prosecutor's office said.
The man, born in Tunisia in 1977, was based in the southern French city of Toulon. He was arrested Friday after a yearlong investigation, the prosecutor's statement said. It did not give his name.
The prosecutor cited "serious and concordant evidence" that the suspect sent material from his computer to terrorist groups. It says he played a "central role" in collecting funds for terrorist groups to buy weapons, but did not elaborate on how much money was involved.
Prosecutors say he is suspected of acting as a financier and recruiter for Al-Qaeda.
Investigators studied thousands of email messages and analyzed a "considerable mass" of data, prosecutors said.
French authorities are sometimes criticized for being too zealous in rounding up terrorist suspects and arrests do not always result in convictions.
On the other hand, French authorities are also sometimes criticized for not acting fast enough.
That was the case with Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman killed in a standoff with police in March after allegedly killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three paratroopers in a rampage in southern France. Those were the country's worst terrorist attacks since the 1990s.