Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to five years in prison in Libya affair

In the process of presumably illegal campaign financing from Libya, the judges have the French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy spoken guilty of the “criminal association”. The court sentenced him to five years in prison.

Several charges against the 70-year-old were dropped on Thursday, including alleged violations of the electoral law. The court also cleared him of the allegation of benefiting from the misappropriation of public funds. Sarkozy threatened up to ten years in prison and a fine in the process. The judgment is not yet final, an appeal is possible. Sarkozy has always rejected the allegations.

Sarkozy was guilty because he “had close employees act” in order to maintain “financial support” of the then Libyan rulers, said presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino. Former Interior Minister Claude Guéant was guilty of passive corruption.

The Libya affair is about the accusation that Sarkozy’s presidential election campaign in 2007 is said to have flowed illegally from the leadership of the then Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. A witness testified in 2016 that he brought several cases prepared in Libya to the Paris Ministry of Paris at the end of 2006 or early 2007, which was then led by Sarkozy. According to the indictment, the later president concluded a corruption pact with Gaddafi. Familiar Sarkozys are said to have threaded the alleged flows of money through middlemen.

In addition to the former head of state, twelve other people were charged with the politically explosive process – including three former ministers.

The indictment had requested seven years in prison and a fine of 300,000 euros for the former hope of France’s bourgeois rights. She saw a number of possible consideration for Libyan campaign aid. The Gaddafi, formerly rather isolated on an international stage, received Sarkozy at the end of 2007 with military honor in the Élysée Palace. Efforts are also said to have been prospect of lifting the arrest warrant against Gaddafi’s brother -in -law Abdallah Senoussi. Senoussi was guilty of a French aircraft with 170 dead in Paris as the main person responsible for a terrorist attack on a French plane. Economic business also led the indictment.

The three -month mammoth process followed for more than ten years of investigation. The investigations had started after the Gaddafi family himself claimed to have financed the conservative election campaign. The spectacular process then dealt with ominous secret meetings and diary entries of a Gaddafi confidante.

Sarkozy rejected the allegations as wrong and weak. The ex-president had announced that he would continue to fight for the truth after the end of the negotiations. It can be assumed that the conservative, whose defense put on acquittal, will appeal.

For Sarkozy, the verdict is a further defeat in a struggle with the judiciary that has been going on for years, even if it was acquitted from central charges. He had already been convicted in two other cases. Due to bribery and unauthorized influence, the old president had to wear a boast for a good three months and was only allowed to leave his house during the day. The one -year prison sentence at home with the ankle bond has now been suspended due to Sarkozy’s age. However, requirements still apply. The judgment – three years in prison, two of them on probation – was unprecedented for a former head of state in recent French history.

Also due to excessive campaign costs for his ultimately failed campaign for re -election in 2012, an appellate court sentenced him to a one -year prison sentence in February 2024, six months on probation. The former leadership figure of the French conservatives went into revision, because these allegations also deny Sarkozy.

Sarkozy’s tenure in the Élysée Palace from 2007 to 2012 was already shaped by affairs for rich friends, nepotism and excessive government members. He lost the 2012 election as an incumbent against socialist François Hollande. Five years later, he failed in the party -internal selection process. Despite his legal hurdle and without offices, he is still considered a influential voice among numerous fans of the bourgeois right.

Note: This article has been updated