Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, died Tuesday aged 75, two days before the verdict in the ex-head of state's trial, his lawyer said.
Takieddine died in the morning in the Lebanese capital Beirut, his French lawyer Elise Arfi told AFP.
Takieddine, a key figure in the case, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to five million euros ($6 million)in cash from Kadhafi to Sarkozy and the former president's chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.
Read moreHow former French president Sarkozy allegedly received millions from Libya's Gaddafi
But in 2020, Takieddine suddenly retracted his incriminating statement, prompting accusations that Sarkozy and close allies paid the witness to change his mind, something they have always denied.
Read moreBeirut detains Lebanese-French businessman close to Sarkozy after Interpol request
Both Sarkozy and his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, have been charged on suspicion of putting pressure on a witness over these allegations in what is now a new legal case.
In the Libya investigation, prosecutors argued that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Gaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund Sarkozy's victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012 and has been convicted twice in other cases, denies the charges.
Prosecutors have demanded a seven-year jail term for Sarkozy when the court delivers its verdict on Thursday.
Takieddine, had himself been targeted by an arrest warrant in the Libya case and had been convicted in another graft case in France. Sarkozy had always rubbished his claims calling him a "great manipulator".
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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