Sarkozy, who was in office from 2007 to 2012, is accused of accepting campaign contributions from the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi via Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine. Takieddine, the key accuser in the case, died on Tuesday in Beirut. He claimed he passed Sarkozy's chief of staff a total of 5 million ($6 million) in cash between 2006 and 2007.
Lord Peter Mandelson once memorably said he was intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. Indeed over three decades at the top of British public life, he has shown a penchant for relaxing intensely in the yachts, homes and holiday pads of the super-wealthy. When the Labour peer was made ambassador to Donald Trump's White House, he promised to stay below the radar but the merest glance at his past record showed that to be a highly unlikely prospect.
Since 2017, German political parties have had to pay a cumulative 1.8 million ($2.1 million) in administrative penalties with over half issued to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The fines pertain to issues such as illegal donations, the misuse of parliamentary group funds and the provision of false information in financial reports. And according to official figures reported in this weekend's Welt am Sonntag broadsheet and seen by the Germany dpa news agency, the AfD alone has been fined around 1.1 million.
