She faces up to ten years of imprisonment and five years of ineligibility. Former Minister of Justice Rachida Dati appears from Wednesday September 16 before the Paris criminal court in a resounding trial for corruption and influence peddling. She is on trial with former Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn, suspected of having received 900,000 euros to support the manufacturer’s interests in the European Parliament.
The 60-year-old politician is suspected of having entered into a corruption pact and of having illegally lobbied in the European Parliament, where she was elected, on behalf of Renault-Nissan between October 2009 and February 2013.
The former Minister of Justice of Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-Minister of Culture of Emmanuel Macron – she left the government in February – denies these accusations and maintains that she only did the work of a lawyer, legally compatible with her function as an elected official.
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“The defense will demonstrate that Rachida Dati worked exclusively as a lawyer for RNBV (the Dutch company used to manage the Renault-Nissan alliance, Editor’s note) and that the unfounded accusations of supposed influence peddling in the European Parliament are an artificial intellectual construction of the accusation,” declare her lawyers Olivier Pardo, Olivier Baratelli and Antoine Beauquier.
If the political stakes are less since her severe defeat in the municipal elections in Paris against the socialist Emmanuel Grégoire, Rachida Dati nevertheless plays her mandate as mayor of the 7th arrondissement of the capital before her judges: she faces five years of ineligibility.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) believes that the legal fees agreement of October 28, 2009 signed between Rachida Dati and Carlos Ghosn, with an annual fixed remuneration of 300,000 euros excluding taxes for the former minister, served to disguise work to defend the interests of the Renault group within the European hemicycle, which her mandate as MEP prohibited.
This contentious contract fell into the hands of French justice in the summer of 2019 during a search of Renault headquarters, after the arrest in Japan in another procedure of Carlos Ghosn, which led to the fall of the all-powerful Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian boss.
Now a refugee in Lebanon after his flight from Japan, Carlos Ghosn, now a business influencer on the internet, is not expected to appear at his trial.
Request for adjournment of the hearing
The prosecution doubts the reality of the legal work carried out by Rachida Dati, who only became a lawyer four months after signing the contract with RNBV, and is surprised by the “singularly limited” traces that justice was able to find of it given the duration of the service and its remuneration.
Rachida Dati maintains that it was Carlos Ghosn’s desire not to keep the notes addressed to him and says she intervened for Renault as a lawyer in cases related to Morocco, Algeria, Turkey or Iran.
Her defense intends to call several witnesses at the hearing attesting, according to her, to her effective work.
The prosecution charges against Rachida Dati three parliamentary questions linked to the automobile sector and positions favorable to the manufacturer, summarized in a note sent by Rachida Dati to Carlos Ghosn in February 2013 at the end of her contract – a simple legal watch, according to her.
In a letter sent to the court at the end of August, of which AFP was aware, the 72-year-old deposed tycoon requested the postponement of the hearing on the grounds that his summons was not received within the legal forms and deadlines.
Carlos Ghosn expects “strict justice which applies the law whatever the consequences, starting with respect for the rules of procedure and the rights of the defense”, his Lebanese lawyer Jean Tannous told AFP.
Denying wanting to “delay this trial”, Carlos Ghosn says in his letter that he is ready to appear by videoconference from Beirut to “explain the facts that (he) disputes”.
In this case, Rachida Dati faces ten years of imprisonment for passive corruption and a fine of 450,000 euros for receiving stolen goods.
Just before this trial, she requested reinstatement – by law – into the judiciary, in which she has not served for more than twenty years. The Superior Council of the Judiciary will examine his case “not before the end of September, the beginning of October”, i.e. after the planned holding of the trial.
With AFP
