2023-05-17 17:36:56
The decision was handed down after judgment of the appeal, which determined that the politician serves three years of sentence under house arrest with the use of electronic anklet.
The Court of Justice of France condemned the former president Nicolas Sarkozy to three years in prison for corruption and influence peddling. The decision handed down this Wednesday, the 17th, was the result of the judgment of the appeal and also includes mandatory compliance with electronic ankle bracelets. He listened to the decision in the dock of the Paris court with a tense face. Magistrates determined the same prison sentence handed down in the trial at first instance, in March 2021. Sarkozy became the first former president of France sentenced to prison with demand to serve part of the sentence. He will be able to serve his sentence under house arrest with the use of an electronic anklet. “Nicolas Sarkozy is innocent”, declared lawyer Jacqueline Laffont, before announcing that she will appeal to the Court of Cassation against the sentence, which also includes the loss of political rights for the former president for three years. The case began in 2014, when the former president’s telephone numbers were being wiretapped for another investigation into alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign. Investigators then discovered the existence of a third telephone line under the pseudonym “Paul Bismuth”, which he used without fear of being heard to talk to his lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog. The indictment claims the two arranged a corruption deal with Gilbert Azibert, a prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, who allegedly offered his help in a case in exchange for a prestigious post in Monaco. Sarkozy then wanted the high court to annul the seizure of his presidential diaries, determined in the context of the investigation into the abuse of the fragility of the heiress of the L’Oréal group, Liliane Bettencourt. Throughout the trial, the defense denounced an accusation built on the “quicksand” of “illegal” wiretapping and without “probative value”.
Herzog and Azibert were also sentenced to the same sentence as Sarkozy for having established a “corruption pact” in 2014 and intend to appeal to the Court of Cassation. Herzog will not be able to work as a lawyer for three years. Sarkozy is still the target of other investigations. The Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for the judgment of the former president and 12 other people on suspicion that his successful election campaign in 2007 was partially financed by the then Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Two investigating judges must now decide whether to prosecute the former president for passive corruption, criminal association, illegal campaign financing and concealment of embezzlement of Libyan public resources, as the Prosecutor’s Office wishes. Starting in November, the husband of singer, model and actress Carla Bruni will also be tried again in the Bygmalion case, which has already resulted in a conviction of one year in prison in the first instance. This process is related to the accounts of the 2012 presidential campaign, which the then president lost to the socialist François Hollande. Although Sarkozy is the first former French president to be sentenced to prison, his predecessor, fellow conservative Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), was sentenced to two years in prison with conditional suspension for fictitious hiring of officials when he was mayor of Paris.
*With information from the AFP agency
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