Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison in Paris on charges of conspiracy to obtain campaign funds from the regime of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy, France’s right-wing president from 2007 to 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison and the first post-war French leader to be imprisoned.
Sarkozy is appealing his conviction and was trying to avoid being photographed outside the gates of La Santé prison, south of Paris. Instead, he planned a highly controlled departure from his home in the west of the capital, where he walked with his wife, singer Carla Bruni, and greeted the crowds gathered in the street outside.
First, Bruni’s children, led by his 14-year-old daughter Giulia, slowly walked from their home to greet well-wishers. One of Sarkozy’s sons, Louis Sarkozy, is preparing to run for mayor of Menton on the French Riviera next spring and has called on his supporters to take to the streets. Some people shouted “Nicola! Nicola!” At the same time, a message appeared on Mr Sarkozy’s social media accounts saying: “I am innocent” and calling his imprisonment a “judicial scandal”.
Sarkozy was found guilty last month of conspiracy over a scheme to solicit funding from Gaddafi’s regime for his victorious 2007 French presidential campaign.
Presiding Judge Natalie Gavarino justified the five-year sentence, saying the facts of the case were “extremely serious” and “potentially undermine public trust.”
During the three-month trial, prosecutors told the court that Sarkozy had struck a “Faustian corruption pact with one of the most unspeakable dictators of the past 30 years” to obtain campaign funds from Gaddafi.
MNA/