lobbyist Jean-Pierre Duthion and political scientist Nabil Ennasri indicted

2023-10-04 23:59:36

After forty-eight hours in police custody, lobbyist Jean-Pierre Duthion and political scientist specializing in Qatar Nabil Ennasri were indicted on Wednesday, October 4, as part of a judicial investigation into suspicions of corruption or drug trafficking. influence around French personalities, Agence France-Presse learned from a judicial source. They are suspected of foreign interference in France, particularly on the part of Qatar.

Nabil Ennasri was placed in pre-trial detention and Jean-Pierre Duthion under judicial supervision, as required by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). On Wednesday, he entrusted his investigations to two investigating judges, who have extensive investigative resources at their disposal, particularly to investigate internationally.

Still according to this source, the judicial information concerns various offenses: active and passive corruption of a private person; corruption and influence peddling, active and passive, in an organized gang, of a public elected official; breach of trust, money laundering, money laundering of tax fraud, non-compliance by a representative of interest with their communication obligations to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP); hidden work.

Investigation into the work of a former BFM-TV journalist

Qatar is not necessarily the only country suspected of interference. At a minimum, the investigation focuses on two episodes and their possible counterparts.

The first concerns the work of the former BFM-TV journalist Rachid M’Barki, who is said to have broadcast a dozen briefs illustrated with images in his nightly newspapers, relating in particular to Russian oligarchs, Qatar and Western Sahara. . Mr. M’Barki was dismissed in February for serious misconduct by Altice, which owns this channel, which filed a complaint.

Read our investigation: Article reserved for our subscribers Behind the false information of Rachid M’Barki on BFM-TV, the Israeli pharmacy Team Jorge and a French intermediary

While deploring a “media lynching”, the 54-year-old journalist admitted to having broadcast images provided by Jean-Pierre Duthion, described as one of his informants. But he assured that he had not had “at no time did he have the impression (…) that he could work for someone who was trying to manipulate information”.

Second episode, an intervention in the National Assembly by the elected environmentalist Hubert Julien-Laferrière, who had praised in February 2022, at the request of the lobbyist, LimoCoin, a cryptocurrency which turned out to be a scam.

Mr. Duthion’s home and the Member of Parliament’s office were searched on September 27. “I strongly deny the assertions that I am “in the service” of Mr. Duthion” or a “any other lobby”indicated the parliamentarian in a press release in February, recognizing a “manifest error of assessment” concerning “the crypto-currency episode”.

For the benefit of the Qatari monarchy

Investigators are also wondering about the role that Mr. Ennasri, author of several works on Qatar, may have played, particularly at the time of the Football World Cup, as an agent of influence for the benefit of the Qatari monarchy, according to the newspaper The Parisian. M. Ennasri “is currently using his right to silence”commented his lawyer, Me Yassine Bouzrou, to AFP.

Investigators “suspect a link” between Nabil Ennasri and Jean-Pierre Duthion, a source close to the investigation also told AFP. “Jean-Pierre Duthion leaves this series of hearings free, and is now waiting for the judicial investigation to result in his exoneration. The offenses with which he is accused are hotly contested: he has never paid remuneration to a parliamentarian, nor to a journalist. He is now forced to have to justify his activities as a lobbyist, in violation of business secrecy.his lawyers Robin Binsard and Guillaume Martine reacted to AFP.

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The PNF procedure began after a complaint from BFM-TV and an international investigation in mid-February by the collective of journalists Forbidden Stories, to which Radio-France and France contributed. The world. It highlighted the activities of an Israeli company, nicknamed “Team Jorge”, specializing in disinformation for the benefit of different clients, including States.

“Story Killers”, investigation into the mercenaries of disinformation

Over several months, around twenty editorial offices, including that of the Mondeinvestigated, au be you consortium Forbidden Stories, on companies specializing in the manipulation of public opinions and the dissemination of false information. As part of this project called “Story Killers”, three journalists from the consortium were notably able to participate, by posing as intermediaries of a potential French client, in several meetings with pharmacies selling influence tools “ keys in hand “.

This investigation notably made it possible to reveal the existence of “Team Jorge”, a very discreet Israeli company which claims its interference in several dozen elections around the world. It offers its customers an arsenal of illegal services, from hacking into private email and messaging boxes of adversaries to the massive diffusion of influence campaigns thanks to a gigantic network of fake accounts on social networks.

The World with AFP