23/07/2008 14:10 PARIS, July 12 (AFP)

Judge takes Ivory Coast journalist probe to Sarkozy's office

A French judge investigating the disappearance of a Canadian journalist in Ivory Coast went this week to President Nicolas Sarkozy's offices to obtain documents held there on the case, officials said Wednesday.

Reporter Guy-Andre Kieffer, 59, who also has French citizenship, disappeared in 2004 while researching a story on corruption in the west African state's cocoa industry.

He has never been found, but French investigators believe he was abducted and murdered on the orders of powerful business interests.

Officials at Sarkozy's Elysee offices said Wednesday the judge did not carry out a raid to obtain the documents -- diplomatic communications and intelligence service notes -- but that they were simply transferred to him when he arrived Tuesday.

But Kieffer's brother Bernard Kieffer told AFP: "The fact that the judge went to the Elysee, that he took the file, shows that he is rocking the boat and that he's intereested in information that the French authorities might have."

Authorities in Ivory Coast on July 12 called for four French consultants to be charged over the Kieffer's disappearance.

A public prosecutor alleged that Kieffer received threats from the men, with whom head had worked also as a consultant, and that they should be charged either as directly responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Kieffer or as accomplices.

Two Ivory Coast judges involved in the case visited Paris in June.

Kieffer's unresolved disappearance remains a sore point in relations between France and Ivory Coast.

Investigators say they do not suspect the Ivorian presidential couple are directly involved in the case but are focusing on other officials in President Laurent Gbagbo's administration, especially those linked to the cocoa industry.

A major corruption probe, ordered by Gbagbo, is currently under way and has claimed the scalps of 17 top cocoa officials, many of whom are former allies of the president and members of his party.

Ivory Coast produces around 40 percent of the world's cocoa and some six million people are employed in the industry.

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