Word: list
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...It’s time to add another name to our list...
...case is known as "Clearstream" - a reference to a Luxembourg bank in which a number of top French politicians and business figures purportedly held accounts containing illegal kickback money from arms contracts. Those claims turned out to be false - as was the forged list of names of 89 Clearstream account holders that was sent to a French investigating judge in 2004 by an anonymous whistle-blower. Among those cited were then Finance Minister Sarkozy, who at the time was locked in a fierce battle with his boss, Prime Minister de Villepin, over who would run as the right's standard...
...Prime Minister is accused of "complicity in false accusation, complicity in using forgeries, receipt of stolen property and breach of trust" in complaints filed by 39 plaintiffs, first among them Sarkozy. Three other defendants join de Villepin on trial for their roles in producing, detaining and disseminating the Clearstream list...
...Villepin denies that he sought to use the list as a way to smear Sarkozy - despite the fact that an intelligence agent he'd asked to investigate the list determined it was a forgery. Notes taken at the time by that same intelligence official suggest that de Villepin and Chirac wanted to exploit the list to undermine Sarkozy. "At no point did I ask for any investigation on any political figures," de Villepin told the press after he was questioned by investigators last year. "And at no point did I participate in any political maneuver...
...Villepin, a conviction would mean a maximum five-year prison sentence and a 10-year ban from public office - a death blow to his political credibility. Acquittal, however, would allow de Villepin to claim the title as the main Clearstream victim - and add legal persecution to his long list of accusations to pound Sarkozy with...