Overview

• His lawyer, Élise Arfi, confirmed he died Tuesday morning in Beirut after a period of illness and recent hospitalization.
• The Franco-Lebanese intermediary was the principal accuser in claims that Libya financed Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign.
• He was under an arrest warrant in the financing dossier as the Paris criminal court scheduled its ruling for Thursday.
• His accounts shifted from detailed allegations in 2012 and 2016 to a 2020 denial later examined as possible witness subornation, leading to indictments of figures including Sarkozy, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Mimi Marchand.
• He had taken refuge in Lebanon days before the 2020 first-instance judgment in the Karachi affair, where he received a five-year sentence later upheld on appeal in early 2025, and his burial is planned Tuesday in Baaqline in the Chouf.