Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy denied on Tuesday receiving money from deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to fund his election bid in 2007, calling claims by Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine a "crude manipulation", according to Reuters.
In a filmed interview released earlier in the day by the news website Mediapart, Takieddine said he had transferred about 5 million euros ($5.4 million) of illicit funding from Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi to Sarkozy and his campaign director Claude Gueant. Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog said, "Legal proceedings will be launched in response."