Blow to re-election hopes as Sarkozy's best man charged

The best man at his wedding has been charged with graft by judges probing alleged kickbacks on an arms deal.Just seven months before the French leader is to go to the country to seek another five-year mandate, Nicolas Bazire became the latest in a string of close allies to be confronted by a criminal investigation.Allegations that a 1995 presidential campaign by Sarkozys mentor Edouard Balladur was funded through a Pakistani submarine contract follow claims members of the presidents party received brown envelopes from an heiress.Sarkozys camp could also find itself implicated in allegations that a rival centre-right group supporting his predecessor as French leader Jacques Chirac received suitcases of cash from African leaders.Bazire, a businessman and former government official who was best man at Sarkozys wedding to supermodel Carla Bruni in February 2008, was detained on Wednesday and questioned overnight before being charged.Bazires lawyer, Jean-Yves Lienard, said that during questioning and prior to his release on bail his client affirmed his total lack of involvement in the matter and branded witness claims to the contrary fantasist.Another Sarkozy ally, Thierry Gaubert, was charged on Wednesday as part of the probe into the Pakistani deal. Both men are now subject to judicial probes into misuse of public funds and could face trial, judicial sources said.Prosecutors suspect middlemen paid huge kickbacks on the Pakistani contract to former prime minister Balladurs 1995 presidential campaign, for which the then budget minister Sarkozy served as chief spokesman.Bazire, 54, was Balladurs one time chief of staff and campaign manager. Gaubert worked for Sarkozy when he was mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly and was his communications adviser as minister.Witnesses have told investigators Bazire had a large safe stuffed with cash during the 1995 campaign. He is now a member of the board of luxury goods giant LVMH, whose shares dropped 6.1 percent Thursday in a falling market.Controversy over the arms contract erupted when investigators began probing whether a 2002 bomb attack in Karachi that killed 11 French engineers working on the project was a revenge attack for promised bribes not paid.Balladurs presidential bid was defeated by Chirac, who, on coming to office, cancelled payments to middlemen on the contract, allegedly angering Pakistani intelligence officers who stood to profit from the deal.Investigators and relatives of the French dead suspect Pakistanis staged the bomb attack -- officially blamed on Al-Qaeda -- in revenge. Sarkozy has dismissed claims that Balladurs campaign took kickbacks on the deal.Nevertheless, the charges against two of his closest allies pushed the story back onto the front pages Thursday, completely overshadowing Sarkozys speech to the United Nations General Assembly on the Middle East crisis.Investigators are probing links between Gaubert and the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who was charged last week with fraud over arms contracts with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in which he was allegedly middleman.A witness questioned by police on September 8 said Takieddine often travelled to Switzerland in the mid-1990s with Gaubert to get cases of cash that were handed over to Bazire in Paris, the news website Mediapart said.News weekly the Nouvel Observateur identified the witness as Princess Helene of Yugoslavia, who is married to Gaubert but separated from him, and who reportedly told investigators of several trips to Switzerland.Published photographs show the leader of Sarkozys UMP party Jean-Francois Cope, his likely campaign manager for next year Brice Hortefeux, and Takieddine relaxing on the latters luxury yacht off the Riviera.Gaubert and his princess wife have also been photographed on the yacht.Frances Constitutional Court was legally advised in 1995 that Balladurs campaign accounts should be rejected because of question marks over huge cash donations, but members eventually voted to approve them in a close vote.Sarkozy came to office in 1997 vowing to lead an irreproachable republic, but his camp has since been tainted by a series of scandals, and opinion polls show him likely to be beaten next year by a Socialist candidate.Before the Karachi scandal caught up with his inner circle, Sarkozy found himself accused of receiving illegal campaign donations from Frances richest woman, 88-year-old LOreal shampoo heiress Liliane Bettencourt.Investigations into the Neuilly-based billionaires finances have now been split into eight overlapping judicial probes, including one investigating the apparent illegal funding of figures from Sarkozys centre-right UMP.