Three judges who convicted a top politician on corruption charges have boycotted a probe into the case ordered by French President Jacques Chirac, sources close to the government said today.
The judges last week handed an 18-month suspended sentence to Mr Chirac protege Mr Alain Juppe, a former conservative prime minister with ambitions to succeed his mentor in the Elysee Palace, and barred him from holding public office for 10 years.
After the verdict, which Mr Juppe is appealing, judge Catherine Pierce and her two assessors said their offices and computers had been tampered with during the trial. They also said they believed their telephones had been tapped.
Mr Chirac promptly announced three top judicial figures would investigate the affair and report directly to him and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin by the end of February.
Although the judges have made no public statements, government and judicial sources said Pierce and her colleagues had made clear late yesterday they would only cooperate with the examining magistrates tasked by the public prosecutor's office to investigate the affair.
The judges were reported to have said it would be wrong to cooperate with Mr Chirac's ad hoc inquiry when examining magistrates were already investigating their allegations.
The judges' snub is deeply embarrassing for the head of state. Prosecutors want to question Mr Chirac about the same party-funding scandal that led to Mr Juppe's conviction but are prevented from doing so by a presidential immunity law.