Burning tanker abandoned in Gulf of Aden as one crew member missing
A Cameroonian-flagged tanker caught fire on Saturday in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen, leaving at least one mariner missing and another likely still aboa...
French prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence and a €300,000 fine for former President Nicolas Sarkozy in his trial over allegations of accepting illegal financing for his 2007 presidential campaign from the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) also called for a five-year ban on Sarkozy's civic, civil and family rights, a measure that would bar him from holding elected office or serving in any public judicial role.
Prosecutors have accused Sarkozy and several of his former associates—including ex-Interior Ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, as well as former Budget Minister Eric Woerth, now a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party—of striking an 'unconceivable, unprecedented, and indecent' agreement with Gaddafi.
However, prosecutors have emphasized that the central figure in the case is Sarkozy himself, accusing him of knowingly benefiting from a 'corruption pact' with a foreign dictatorship.
The former president is accused of accepting €50 million in cash from Gaddafi—more than twice the legal campaign funding limit of €21 million at the time. French law imposes strict caps on campaign spending and permits contributions only from French citizens or residents, France24 reported.
70-year-old Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, faces charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and criminal association.
In exchange for financial support, as Politico reported, Sarkozy allegedly used his presidential powers to strengthen France’s diplomatic and business ties with Tripoli and reconsider the case of Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi. In 1999, a French court found Senussi guilty in absentia for his role in the bombing of a flight from Brazzaville, in the then-People’s Republic of the Congo, to Paris—a tragedy that killed all 170 passengers—and sentenced him to life in prison.
The allegations first emerged in 2011 when a Libyan news agency reported that Gaddafi's government had funded Sarkozy's campaign.
'It’s thanks to us that he reached the presidency,' Gaddafi claimed in an interview. 'We provided him with the funds that allowed him to win.
In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it described as a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a €50 million funding agreement.
Investigators confirmed that the memo was authentic, though no conclusive evidence of a completed transaction has been presented. They also looked into a series of trips by Sarkozy's associates to Libya between 2005 and 2007.
Sarkozy has dismissed the Libya allegations as politically motivated and rooted in forged evidence.
"I will therefore continue to fight step by step for the truth, and for my faith in the wisdom of the court," he said.
Sarkozy said during the trial that he had never accepted any money from Kadhafi.
"You will never ever find a single euro, a single Libyan cent, in my campaign," he said.
The 70-year-old is already serving a one-year prison sentence under house arrest after being found guilty of corruption.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
A Cameroonian-flagged tanker caught fire on Saturday in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen, leaving at least one mariner missing and another likely still aboard, officials said. The rest of the crew abandoned the vessel.
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has reached a political arrangement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) ahead of the country’s upcoming prime ministerial election.
Flights out of Bangladesh's main airport were delayed or diverted on Saturday after a major fire broke out in the cargo terminal, officials said.
Repair work has started on damaged off-site power lines to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant following a four-week outage, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on Saturday.
Afghanistan and Pakistan will hold peace talks in Doha on Saturday, both sides said, after the South Asia neighbours extended a ceasefire following a week of fierce border clashes.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment