Farias also caused a scandal in 2007 when he turned up at Paris’s Charles de
Gaulle airport with eight young women, one of whom was a minor, to attend
the Cannes Film Festival. They were refused entry.
They were due to stay on a 136-metre-long luxury yacht, La Savarona, which had
been rented for 350,000 euros a week.
Wiretapped telephone conversations from the time showed the involvement of
four Lebanese nationals, a Venezuelan and two escort girls from Cannes in an
alleged prostitution ring, whose clients were rich men from the Middle East.
“Those really responsible are absent or have fled,” said Franck De
Vita, the lawyer for Samari.
According to Patrick Rizzo, lawyer for an anti-procuring charity that is a
civil party to the trial, it was “the political context” in 2007
and 2008 that hampered the legal investigation.
“Colonel Gaddafi was received at the Elysee (French presidential palace)
at the time, he was France’s good friend,” Mr Rizzo said.
“All this context did not favour international investigations.”
The inquiry established that young women of various nationalities including
models, beauty queens and escort girls, were recruited, especially during
the Cannes film festival for clients from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait ready to pay thousands of dollars for their services.