Judge in Sarkozy case receives death threat

The row over a corruption probe against Nicolas Sarkozy has escalated after the judge who charged France's former president received a bullet and a death threat in the post.

Published: 28 March 2013 08:48 CET

Judge in Sarkozy case receives death threat

File photo: Phillipe Wojazer/AFP

The letter was sent to Jean-Michel Gentil, the most prominent of three judges investigating the case, the magistrate's union SM revealed in a statement published on its website.

The threatening letter, delivered on Wednesday, was accompanied by blank cartridges.

One of Gentil's colleagues said the letter, mailed to his Bordeaux office, also contained threats against other magistrates. Police had been called in to investigate, the colleague added.

The SM, in its online statement, denounced what it called "insulting statements" made by Sarkozy's inner circle which it said were designed to undermine the work of the judiciary.

It noted too that Sarkozy's own lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had questioned Gentil's impartiality in an interview with Sunday newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

The SM said a number of its members were targeted in the letter. Gentil himself is not a member of the union, one colleague told AFP.

Sarkozy's lawyers are attempting to overturn last week's decision by three examining magistrates to charge him in a case that threatens to destroy his hopes of a political comeback.

Gentil last June put his name to an opinion column signed by dozens of legal professionals in Le Monde newspaper, accusing Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac of "wishing to protect the corrupt", Herzog pointed out.

Herzog added that five days after signing the column, Gentil had ordered police to search Sarkozy's home, office and his secretary's house.

The decision to place Sarkozy under formal investigation has provoked a furious reaction from his political allies. Already, Gentil is taking one of his critics to court.

Henri Guaino, a former special adviser to Sarkozy and a deputy with his right-wing UMP party said the magistrate's decision to place the former president under formal investigation had "dishonoured justice".

On Wednesday, Socialist Justice Minister Christiane Taubira intervened in the growing row. She asked the magistrates' governing body, the Conseil superieur de la magistrature (CSM), to give its view on what effect the attacks on Gentil were having on the "proper functioning of the judiciary".

Sarkozy himself has repeatedly denied claims he accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from the world's richest woman Liliane Bettencourt to fund his successful 2007 campaign.

Medical experts say the mental faculties of the L'Oreal heiress began to deteriorate in 2006.

On Monday, Sarkozy used his Facebook page to insist he had not taken advantage of Bettencourt. Describing the charges against him as "unfair and unfounded", he vowed to clear his name.

With the right divided by in-fighting, Sarkozy had, in recent weeks, hinted that he was considering a return to the frontline of French politics.

He suggested in one interview that he could be forced to re-enter the fray out of a sense of duty to his country.

Last week's decision by the judges to put him under formal investigation dealt a blow to those ambitions.

Sarkozy could face up to three years in jail, a fine of €375,000 and a five-year ban from public office if convicted.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.