Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been questioned by police over allegations he received millions of euros in illicit campaign funding from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.<br />Ro Aram has the details. <br /> The inquiry began in 2013, but police on Tuesday took Sarkozy into custody for questioning for the first time over the allegations.<br />The investigation is potentially France's most explosive political financing scandal in decades. <br />The former president has dismissed allegations that Gaddafi illegally funded his 2007 campaign as "grotesque" and a "crude manipulation". <br />The amount of money in question was 50 million euros - more than double the legal campaign funding limit, which at the time was 21 million.<br /> The alleged payments would also violate French rules against foreign financing and declaring the source of campaign funds. <br />The inquiry was kicked off after the French investigative website Mediapart published a document it said was signed by a senior Libyan figure stating the regime approved the 50-million-euro payment.<br />Sarkozy and his close aides had claimed the documents were false, but French courts had ruled certain ones were authentic, enabling the probe to go on. <br />It gained steam after a French-Lebanese businessman who was close to Gaddafi's regime told Mediapart two years ago that he was the one who personally delivered suitcases of cash. <br /> Sarkozy had refused police summons up until now, and now that he has finally shown up, police can hold him for 48 hours.<br />After that, they can release him or send him before magistrates who decide whether they have grounds for turning a preliminary inquiry into a full investigation. <br /> This is the second major judicial investigation to fall on Sarkozy, as he already faces trial on separate charges of illicit spending overruns during his failed re-election campaign in 2012.<br />Ro Aram, Arirang News. <br />
