PARIS (AP) - The Paris prosecutor’s office says a former security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron has been taken into police custody in an investigation of possible misuse of diplomatic passports.
The prosecutor’s office said Thursday that its original investigation of Alexandre Benalla’s passport use was extended to an alleged forgery involving an official document. The French presidency flagged the document.
Benalla was fired in July 2018 following revelations he had received a two-week suspension for beating a protester at a May Day rally. French authorities have said he was asked to surrender his diplomatic passports when he was sacked.
Benalla acknowledged in a recent interview to French newspaper Journal du Dimanchehe that he used them to travel for his personal convenience after his firing.
The beating revelations caused Macron’s first major presidential crisis.
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