Libya funded Sarkozy 2007 campaign: ex-Libya PM's lawyer

Muammar Gaddafi's regime funded French President Nicolas Sarkozy's

2007 election campaign, a lawyer for former Libyan prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi said Thursday, quoting his client. "Moamer Kadhafi, his regime and the officials who worked with him financed Sarkozy's election campaign in 2007," Bechir Essed told reporters in Tunis, where Mahmudi is detained, mentioning the sum of some 50 million euros. Hollande urges inquiry into Sarkozy's ties with Gaddafi French presidential candidate Francois Hollande has called for an inquiry into suspected ties between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Libya’s slain ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Hollande’s Socialist party wants prosecutors to verify reports that Gaddafi financed Sarkozy’s presidential campaign five years ago. Earlier, the Mediapart internet outlet published a document claiming that Sarkozy received 50 million euro from Gaddafi for his presidential race. Sarkozy refuted the allegations, saying they were absurd. Hollande and Sarkozy will clash in the second round of the French presidential election scheduled for May 6. Gaddafi put up 50M euro for Sarkozy’s presidential bid Deceased Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had agreed to fund French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign – to the tune of 50 million euro. The Paris-based investigative website Mediapart published “documentary evidence” that Gaddafi was ready to put forth tens of millions of dollars to see that Sarkozy won the French presidential race. Mediapart claimed Saturday that the 2006 document was provided by "former senior [Libyan] officials, who are now in hiding." They further claim the document came “from the archives of the secret service,” and was signed by Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief and later foreign minister, Moussa Koussa. In it, Koussa noted “an agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50 million euro." Sarkozy denied similar allegations made this March, when the former doctor of a French arms dealer claimed to have set up the campaign donation. Sarkozy attempted to shrewdly deflect the allegations when confronted by a TF1 presenter, saying, "If [Gaddafi] had financed it, I wasn't very grateful." Sarkozy’s sarcastic comeback was in reference to France’s lead role in the NATO campaign that led to Gaddafi’s brutal demise. French politicians are banned from receiving campaign contributions from foreign states, and a French judge is currently looking into the allegations. The document has surfaced at a particularly sensitive time for Sarkozy, who lost the first round of the French presidential vote and is currently trailing his Socialist rival Francois Hollande in the polls. The second round of the presidential election is scheduled for May 6.