Two French magistrates investigating an attempt to smear President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday searched the Paris residence of former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who has been implicated in the affair by a former espionage official, France-Info radio reported, according to dpa. The search by judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons followed testimony by a former senior official in France's counter- intelligence service, General Philippe Rondot, that Villepin was behind the attempt to implicate Sarkozy in an affair involving illegal payments into foreign bank accounts. According to the internet site of the daily Le Monde, Rondot told the two judges on Wednesday that files found on his computer suggesting that the former prime minister was behind the smear attempt were accurate. He said that a former senior manager with the aerospace giant EADS, Jean-Louis Gergorin, had told him on May 4, 2004, that Villepin ordered him eight days earlier to meet with a judge looking into kickbacks from the sale of six frigates to Taiwan. On May 14, that judge, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, received the first of several anonymous letters charging that a number of prominent French figures held illegal bank accounts abroad into which kickbacks related to the frigate sale were deposited. One of the individuals implicated was Sarkozy, then finance minister. At the time, Villepin was interior minister. Other evidence discovered in the investigation has suggested that Villepin may have acted for then-president Jacques Chirac, a fierce rival of Sarkozy's. If the allegations are confirmed by other evidence or testimony, Villepin could eventually be placed under investigation for slander, Le Monde said.
