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Ex-PM stars in French slander trial

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-22 02:26

A key defendant is a former vice president at Airbus parent company EADS, Jean-Louis Gergorin. He is accused of cooking up the scheme to discredit leading figures and is charged with "slanderous denunciations."

The other defendants are an accountant accused of stealing Clearstream documents used to make the faked list, Florian Bourges; Denis Robert, an investigative journalist accused of giving the Clearstream documents to computer expert Imad Lahoud; and Lahoud, accused of doctoring the documents.

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The trial has transfixed France's political elite, dividing conservatives between Sarkozy's allies and Villepin's shrinking camp. Leftists, meanwhile, are deriding both men.

Socialist lawmaker Pierre Moscovici said he was shocked by the "paroxysm of hate" coming from the two and said it shows the "violence" of relations on France's right wing.

Sarkozy went on to win the 2007 presidential election. The Clearstream affair cast a shadow over Villepin, who has left open the possibility of running in the next presidential election in 2012.

Other former French prime ministers have faced legal woes in the past.

In 2004, Alain Juppe was convicted in a corruption case that predated his time as premier. In 1999, Laurent Fabius was acquitted of manslaughter in a case of people given blood transfusions tainted with the HIV virus. Both men once were considered potential presidential candidates.

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