The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy He will enter prison on October 21 to begin serving his five-year sentence for “illicit association”, in a case related to the illegal financing of the campaign that brought him to the Elysée in 2007 and which supposedly included millions of euros from the dictator libyan regime Muammar Gaddafi.
The sentence against Sarkozy, issued on September 25, is based on the fact that he committed “exceptionally serious acts, capable of undermining the trust of citizens in their representatives,” according to the French newspaper. For this reason, a fine of 100,000 euros has been imposed on him and he has been disqualified for five years to run for public office.
Sarkozy, however, was acquitted of the crimes of embezzlement of public funds and non-compliance with the electoral code, charges for which he was also prosecuted. The Prosecutor’s Office had requested seven years in prison.
Sarkozy and Gaddafi, in an archive image.
EFE
The conservative politician was accused of having reached an agreement with Gaddafi in 2005, when he was Minister of the Interior, to give him money for his candidacy for the French presidency. In return, Sarkozy supposedly promised to support the regime, then condemned to international ostracism until his fall in 2011.
Specifically, the president of the court pointed out that the then claimant to the Elysée allowed those two next collaborators, who would later occupy prominent positions during his presidential term, “obtain financial support” from Tripoli for the 2007 campaign box.
The judges consider Sarkozy guilty for having used his influence as president of the conservative UMP party and as a presidential candidate so that his collaborators, such as Claude Gueant y Brice Hortefeuxcommitted corruption crimes with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
The sentence establishes that this crime of illicit association was committed between 2005, the date of Sarkozy’s trip to Libya as Minister of the Interior, until May 15, 2007, when his presidential term began, at which time was covered by immunity as head of state.
Sarkozy will be the first former French head of state imprisoned since the end of World War II, when Philippe Pétain ended up behind bars after collaborating with Nazi Germany during the Vichy regime.
Third sentence for Sarkozy
At 70 years old, Sarkozy, who between February and May had to wear an electronic bracelet to guarantee house arrest for which he was definitively convicted last December by another previous sentence, has not finished facing Justice since his defeat against the socialist François Hollande in 2012.
The former French president already He has been convicted in two previous trials, one for corruption and influence peddling, for which he was sentenced to one year in prison and which is now final; and another for the financing of his 2012 campaign, for which he was sentenced on appeal to 6 months in prison and an appeal is pending before the Supreme Court.
After learning of his five-year prison sentence, Sarkozy denounced that it was “extremely serious for the rule of law, for trust in Justice” and announced that he will fight “until his last breath to prove his complete innocence.”