Former French PM cleared of smear in blow to Sarkozy

PARIS (Reuters) - Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was cleared on Thursday of plotting to smear his old rival Nicolas Sarkozy, dealing a stinging blow to the president who never made a secret of their enmity.

In a political scandal unprecedented in recent French history, Villepin had been accused in the so-called "Clearstream case" of using faked documents to link Sarkozy to a corruption investigation as the two men angled to succeed the ageing former president Jacques Chirac.

The aristocratic Villepin always denied the charges and said repeatedly that he was a victim of a vendetta by Sarkozy, who won power in the 2007 election while Villepin, who had served with Sarkozy in Chirac's government, battled the allegations.

In a ruling read out to the packed courtroom, a judge said there was no firm evidence that Villepin had sought to discredit Sarkozy or had acted in bad faith.

"I salute the courage of the court, which has allowed justice and the law to triumph over politics," Villepin told reporters gathered outside the door of the courtroom.

"I don't bear any grudges or rancour. I want to turn the page," he said. "I want to look to the future, to serve the French people and continue in a spirit of unity."

Villepin, who won global fame in 2003 when he denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq from the floor of the United Nations, holds no elected post and works as a lawyer.

He still has backers on the centre-right and friends have said he should challenge Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. However, his electoral appeal is uncertain and a recent opinion poll showed no more than 8 percent support.

THREE FOUND GUILTY

Sarkozy, who was a civil plaintiff in the case and who celebrated his 55th birthday on Thursday, said in a statement he was "satisfied" by the verdict and would not appeal.

But the outcome was a personal triumph for Villepin, whom prosecutors accused of arranging for the faked documents to be handed to magistrates investigating a bribe-ridden arms deal with Taiwan in the 1990s.

The CD ROMs listed Sarkozy's name along with dozens of others from France's business and political elite, purportedly tying them to secret accounts held at Luxembourg-based securities clearing house Clearstream.

While Villepin was cleared, the court found three of his co-defendants guilty and said Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former EADS executive with links to intelligence services and Imad Lahoud, a computer specialist, were the main architects of the affair.

Their motivation remained unclear, although judges noted Gergorin's notorious rivalry with the numerous aerospace and defence industry executives whose names also appeared on the faked lists.

Gergorin, whom the judge said "could not claim good faith or credibility given that his whole career is marked by permanent, distrust," was sentenced to 15 months in prison and Lahoud to 18 months and both also received fines of 40,000 euros (34,800 pounds).

Florian Bourges, a former Arthur Andersen auditor who obtained the original documents, was found guilty of breach of trust but the investigative journalist Denis Robert, to whom he gave them and who later showed them to Lahoud, was cleared.

(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Michael Roddy)

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