Sarkozy's denial
Published:
March 17, 2011 at 1:00am
The Elysee Palace has denied Saif Al Islam Gaddafi’s claims, made earlier today, that Tripoli financed Sarkozy’s election campaign. The reply from the president’s palace was a terse “We deny this.”
Saif Al Islam had retorted, when asked by an interviewer what he thought about France’s recognition of the council in Benghazi:
“Sarkozy is a clown. He should pay back all the money we gave him to help him be elected president so that he would help Libya. We have all the papers and the receipts.”
If he hasn’t, he can always make some up.
31 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
I can imagine the receipt:
I, the undsigned Nicholas sarkozy, am receiving from Saif al-Ghaddafi the sum of….in order that if elected i shall help the Libyan people.
Failure on my part to help the Libyan people shall entail he forfeiture of said sum which shall at that very instant become certain, liquidated and due….
In which case UN unanimously saved Sarkozy, the freeze on funds means he can keep the cash.
What help did Gaddafi expect of France? More weapons, updated Mirages and perhaps a battalion of Foreign Legionaires to help kill his people?
The Malta Labour Party, on the other hand…
Muscat must be excited on two fronts – his guided missile JPO in parliament and Gaddafi regaining power in Libya.
You mean his misguided missile.
@ DCG
On a recent post you predicted that Sarkozy will recognise the revolutionary council because he is Hungarian and knows what it means to live, and die, under a totalitarian regime.
[Daphne – I predicted nothing of the sort. It had happened already when I wrote about it. And Sarkozy does not know what it means to live and die under a totalitarian regime because he was born in France, where he is still alive. I said something else altogether: that his Hungarian heritage gives him a different perspective.]
I beg to differ. It is a fact that M.Sarkozy is Hungarian, but it is also a fact that he is a big an opportunist as Sig.Berlusconi. He acted the way he did to replace Berlusconi as Libya’s favourite foreign son!
For once I agree with Seif Gaddafi – Sarkozy is a clown and not a very funny one at that. I also believe that yes, Libya did finance Sarkozy’s campaign. I spent nearly twenty (beautiful) years working in Libya and if you keep your ear to the ground you start to get an inkling of what really is going on.
[Daphne – Really? Is that why practically all the expatriates I know are in a mad rush to return to Libya because it was so beautiful and so wonderful and the people are so nice? They lived their lives cut off from reality – moving from secure compound to private beach to party to tennis to workplace, like the white settlers in Kenya in 1930, with nary a clue what was going on.]
George Mifsud, did your “ear to the ground” tell you anything about the atrocities being commited while you were enjoying your beautiful years in Libya?
George Mifsud, does your Libyan business contract stipulate payment per ounce of bullshit or do they use the metric system?
@DCG,
Regarding Sorkozy’s birthplace – I reread your post and you are right. As regards the rest, I stick to what I wrote.
My twenty years in Libya were ‘beautiful’ because I bothered to live among the people and NOT in a secure compound and along with my wife I used to go to public beaches. And no, I never partook of sundowners like the Kenyan settlers – these I left until later in the privacy of my house which was situated in a Libyan street in a Libyan city.
I retired and returned to Malta years ago but still remember the kindnesses and courtesy of the Libyan in the street. I was fully aware that the country was/is governed by a dictator, but since I was a guest in that country, I kept my opinions to myself.
[Daphne – You did not keep your opinions to yourself because you were a guest, George. You kept them to yourself for the same reason that your Libyan friends did: the serious consequences of speaking them out, even in private. And also because it is a criminal offence, punishable with a prison sentence, for a Libyan person to discuss ‘national policy’ with foreigners.]
The whole world had more than a clue of what really was going on and that includes governments – including ours. I was not, in any way trying to laud the Gadhafi regime, but simply to compliment the Libyan people and try to get across how dirty international politics is.
[Daphne – Libyan people are no different from Maltese people, Italian people, German people, Russian people, whatever; they are people. All human beings are the same; it is only customs and mores which are different. I cannot bear references to how nice and kind Libyan people are. That attitude is so very patronising – like the British tourists who write in to The Times to announce that Maltese people are really very friendly. You know, they don’t bite, like other sorts of animals.]
Oh and by the way, some of the expats you mention refer to Libyans as ragheads amongst other illustrious adjectives. They just go to work in Libya and call Libyans names while laughing all the way to the bank.
[Daphne – They did and do the same in Malta.]
@ Antoine Vella
My ‘ear to the ground’ told me a lot, but what can individuals do where governments and the whole world turn a blind eye? My situation was a lot like yours when the university you work for had ‘skambji ta’ ricerka u taghlim mal-Gvern Libjan.’
@ HP Baxxter
I do not have, nor ever had any ‘business’ contract/s, so please keep your comments to yourself. Actually they use the metric system, and I was paid in US dollars. I spent some of the years in Libya ‘representing’ our government in one of its ‘nefarious’ business deals with the Libyan regime.
Had Joseph Muscat sided with the rebels, would Gaddafi have asked them for the “children’s allowance” back? And what about other funds?
Apparently Gaddafi has the receipts, Antoine.
Ma x-biza. Il-bierah waqt program fuq ONE fuq id-divorzju ghal lewel darba f hajti hasejtni naqbel aktar man-naha tal-PL.
Well according to talking heads on a French tv programme I watched last night, Gadaffi probably made a very large donation to a French charity (perhaps one of Carla’s favourites) and part of the money would have been retroceded in louche ways to S’s campaign.
France has been trying to pull Europe out of the US’s clutches since de Gaul. Maybe this time they might succeed in giving Europe a cohesive international face. Maybe it will happen in time to save Libya. Maybe.
[Daphne – de Gaulle. He’s named after the airport. You know, like those houses in Gozo are named after the Alhambra near the Beverley Hills Hotel.]
I thought it was a cinema on ‘the Ferries’.
Dil-bawxata ta’ Sarkozy hi kaz ta’ “mishandling” mill-bidu sa l-ahhar u se tkun it-tebut tal-karriera politika tieghu.
Sadattant, Gaddafi kollox qed jigih sew. Ghajnejn id-dinja iffokati fuq ir-reatturi nukleari ghax hemm cans kbir ta Chernobyl ohra.
Il-mistoqsija hi din: kemm huma affidabbli (reliable) u kredibbli il-gurnalisti investigattivi u l-analisti politici? Assigurawna li m’hemmx periklu. Assigurawna li t-Tunesija sikura. Assigurawna li Gaddafi kwazi tilef?
Imbaghad f’Malta nehdew niddiskutu l-kapricci ta’ Jeffrey Pullicino Orlanda u il-basktijiet ta’ Emy Bezzina!
Reports have been coming in on the social media Twitter claiming that a pilot has defected from Gadaffi’s army in a spectacular suicide attempt to take down his stronghold, Baab Al Aziziyah in the heart of Tripoli.
The pilot was on a mission with a second plane to bomb cities when the pilot turned his plane around, flew to Tripoli, and attacked the fortress hiding place of Moammar Gadaffi.
He is said to have emptied his weaponry’s rounds into the Dictator’s barracks as he crashed the plane into it.
New Tweets are also stating that Khamis Gadaffi’s son is in the hospital in serious conditions with burns.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8488740-stunning-tweets-from-resistance-claim-kamikaze-defected-pilot-hero-crashes-into-gadaffi-stronghold
[Daphne – I have been picking that up for the past two days, but can’t find anything on the mainstream media, so I am reluctant to take it seriously for now.]
gaul / gaulle… it’s all french to me …
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110317/local/grtu-calls-on-government-to-guarantee-libya-business-loans
So the GRTU wants government to make good for business loans gone bad due to the Libyan crisis. If I remember correctly, during the past 42 years of dealing with Gaddafi, his family and hangers-on, they never grumbled when pocketing profits; they even indulged in a little sanction-busting in the Tolotela days with increased profits.
So the government and the banks will have to make good for their dodgy country risk assessment as for them heads I win, tails you lose,
Even so … if Sarkozy was financed by Libya he is now showing that Gaddafi’s killing his own people cannot be stomached any more. Sarkozy and Cameron have shown gentlemanly character
BBC World News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12769807
17 March 2011 Last updated at 09:57 GMT Gaddafi did not fund Sarkozy, Claude Gueant insists
Nicolas Sarkozy’s former presidential election campaign head has rejected claims by Col Muammar Gaddafi’s son that they received funding from Libya.
I wonder whether the Malta Labour Party can be as categorical as Sarkozy was in his denial, if faced with a similar claim from Seif.
I am not morally convinced that the Partit Laburista would have issued any receipts, though.
They’re faced with claims to that effect from members of the electorate here in Malta. Their silence is deafining.
Ranier Fsadni today:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110317/opinion/risks-of-a-libyan-no-fly-zone
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110317/local/grtu-calls-on-government-to-guarantee-libya-business-loans
From timesofmalta.com
“Frans Sammut(25 minutes ago)
The GRTU’s appeal strengthens my belief that a Maltese delegation (made up of former premier Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and EU Commissioner John Dalli) deployed to negotiate peaceful mediation in Libya would have been far wiser than threatening the Libyan Regime with military intervention. The UN Secretary General is mentioning a similar option (in the shape of a call for a ceasefire) but may now be too late to avoid a bloodbath. Tribal politics and attendant civil wars are not to be tackled by armchair observers with a secular inferiority complex inherited from a colonial past, but by seasoned politicians like the two gentlemen I mentioned above and who may enjoy far greater respect among the players on the Libyan chessboard. A mix of such an inferiority complex plus a dose of underestimation for the players on both sides of the ongoing “game” does produce an honourable attitude that could materialize into a very valid contribution to defusing the human tragedy unstoppably unfolding in that neighbouring country.”
Pompous ass !
I can imagine Sarkozy’s campaign treasurer going around with a dog eared receipt book handing out receipts for ten or ten million euro donations as they come in.
Gaddafi’s contribution, I would imagine, would have been just a tad over ten euro.
Saif’s bullshit boggles my mind.
If we were to believe Saif al Islam, and we can give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, he apparently has been “buying” future interests in democratic governments around Europe.
Of course, we will never know whether he made similar payments, if any, to the other candidates for the French elections, or to any other party in Europe, Partit Laburista included.
In all cases, I think Sarkozy can brush this off by saying that the standard European warranty period is of 2 years and therefore Saif can get stuffed with his receipts.
These cornered rats will stop at nothing.
Give us back the money ‘WE’ gave you!
What’s this ‘WE’ buisness?
Saif is CEO of which bank?