The large white building is located about a hundred meters from the Vésinet station, an exclusive neighborhood in Yvelines. “Villa Suzette” indicates a sealed marble plaque next to the portal. According to a site that lists all the opulent homes in the city, this house on Avenue Maurice-Berteaux was named after Suzanne de Zara, one of the residence’s first residents. This artist would have lived there at the beginning of the 20th century.my century.
Villa Suzette today has other famous owners: the family of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, president of Congo-Brazzaville. In July 1983, he bought it for 3 million francs (the equivalent of more than 1 million euros today). After his defeat in the 1992 elections, he retired there for a time to prepare his return and regain power in 1997 after four months of civil war.
A haven of peace far from Brazzaville but which, according to the Sherpa association and other NGOs, was acquired thanks to money diverted from Congolese oil revenues. In 2007, these organizations filed a complaint with the French courts for misappropriation of public funds. In this case called “illicit profits”, in which the magistrates want to know if the French assets of several African leaders (Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, etc.) were made up of embezzled public money, relatives of the Congolese president were accused.
For investigators, Villa Suzette would have been acquired thanks to these embezzlements. According to the criminal seizure of real property order, a six-page document that the world I was able to consult, the good thing “It was financed with the proceeds of various crimes”such as complicity in the cover-up of embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, embezzlement of business assets, abuse of trust, etc.
The house, confiscated by French justice in August 2015, is still inhabited and belongs to the family of the Congolese president. “The case is ongoing.”explains Jean-Marie Viala, lawyer for the Sassou-Nguesso family. Criminal seizures are not sentencing orders. No one has been tried or convicted in this case. »
“Golden everywhere”
More than four decades after its acquisition by Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Villa Suzette has not revealed all its secrets. “I bought it in 1983 and decided to put it in the name of my brother, a farmer in the town who did not have the means to afford that accommodation. declared the Congolese president in an interview with the weekly the express in July 2009. It’s a family asset. I sent my children there to study in France. There they experienced the ordeal: sometimes, there was no heat or water. » In February 2002, Denis Sassou-Nguesso decided to completely renovate this 500 m² villa.
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