London, Oct 1 : Former French justice minister Rachida Dati threatened to have her brother, a convicted drugs dealer, "sent back to the psychiatric hospital" if he came out with a critical "tell-all" tome, claims his lawyer.

However, keeping the alleged threat aside, Jamal Dati, one of the former minister''s 11 siblings and who spent a year in prison for drug dealing, is coming out with In the Shadow of Rachida on October 7.

In its preface, Mr Dati''s lawyer, Frédéric Berna, claims his phone calls were tapped, the book contract stolen and recounts how his sister summoned him to the justice ministry in place Vendôme, reports The Telegraph.

"She said to me: ''you are not unaware that my brother has already been interned in a psychiatric hospital. If he needs to go back there''. "That open-ended phrase chilled me to the bone. Then I got angry. Was this a threat?"

Mr Dati also claims his sisters ganged up on him to stop publication by "intimidating" his partner and mother of their child.

Rachida, 43, was controversially sacked earlier this year, just five days after giving birth, and ordered to stand as an MEP.

Nicolas Sarkozy is said to have reduced her to tears when he told her: ''Either you leave for Brussels or you leave with nothing.''

She then triggered a media frenzy by refusing to reveal the father''s identity. (ANI)