Major French smear trial closes

Prosecutors say Dominique de Villepin was an "accomplice through silence"

The trial of former French PM Dominique de Villepin, accused of conspiring to damage Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential bid, has ended.

Defence lawyers in Paris made their final arguments in the highly-charged case on Friday, and a verdict is due on 28 January.

Mr de Villepin has denied orchestrating any plot, saying the case is part of a vendetta against him.

Prosecutors have called for him to receive an 18-month suspended sentence.

They have also asked judges to impose a fine of 45,000 euros (£41,000).

In his concluding arguments, Mr Sarkozy's lawyer poked fun at the former prime minister's elegance and vanity, warning one can be handsome, tall and arrogant - and yet still lose the case.

But after the final hearing, Mr de Villepin told reporters that though he and his family had suffered for four years, he wanted to "turn the page and look towards the future".

"I want to reach out to Nicolas Sarkozy. I am not bitter, and I want to serve the French people in my rightful place," he said.

'Failed to act'

Prosecutors say Mr de Villepin was an accomplice in a judicial corruption investigation in 2004, in a bid to spoil Mr Sarkozy's chances of winning the 2007 election.

The case centres on forged documents that wrongly implicated Mr Sarkozy in a major corruption scandal and were passed to a French magistrate.

It was alleged those named on the list had received bribes from international arms sales.

At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Mr Sarkozy and Mr de Villepin were rivals vying to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.

The month long trial was dramatic from the start, says the BBC's Emma-Jane Kirby in Paris, and one of the most high powered and complex trials in modern French history.

Mr Sarkozy, who claimed Mr de Villepin was the "primary instigator" behind the campaign to thwart his presidential bid, is one of 39 civil plaintiffs in the case.

In turn, Mr de Villepin testified last month that Mr Sarkozy had shown a "relentlessness to destroy a political adversary".

Witnesses gave contradictory versions of events in three weeks of trial hearings, leaving 40 volumes of written evidence for judges to study, AFP news agency reported.

Prosecutors argued that while Mr de Villepin had not deliberately taken part in the plot to defame Mr Sarkozy, he had failed to take action to stop the conspiracy and was an "accomplice through silence".

They have also requested sentences for three other defendants.

The case, labelled by the French media as "the trial of the decade", has been unfolding in the same Paris courtroom where Queen Marie Antoinette was sentenced to the guillotine in 1793 by France's revolutionary tribunal.