Paris court hands ex-French Prez Sarkozy 5-year prison sentence in financing case

Paris: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison after a Paris court found him guilty of criminal association in connection with alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign. In a surprising move, the court ruled that the 70-year-old conservative leader will serve time even if he appeals, though the exact date of his incarceration has yet to be determined.

The judges concluded that Sarkozy allowed close aides to reach out to Libyan authorities between 2005 and 2007 to seek funds in exchange for diplomatic favours. However, they stopped short of confirming that Libyan money was ultimately used in his successful campaign. “It cannot be established with certainty that funds from Libya ended up financing Mr Sarkozy’s campaign,” the chief judge said while reading the lengthy verdict.

The former president was acquitted of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of embezzled public funds. Two of his former ministers, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, were also convicted of criminal association but cleared on several other counts.

Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and his three sons, listened to the judgment in a packed courtroom. Throughout his three-month trial earlier this year, he denied wrongdoing and dismissed the case as a politically motivated “plot” relying on “forged” documents and testimony from “liars and crooks”.

The accusations trace back to 2011, when Muammar Gadhafi and Libyan media alleged that millions had been secretly funnelled into Sarkozy’s campaign. A 2012 Mediapart publication of a purported Libyan intelligence memo referencing €50 million in funding deepened suspicion, though the court concluded Thursday that the document was “most likely a forgery.”

Prosecutors nevertheless argued Sarkozy benefited from a “corruption pact” with Gadhafi’s regime. The trial also examined trips by Sarkozy’s associates to Tripoli and the testimony of Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who once claimed to have delivered cash-filled suitcases to Sarkozy’s Interior Ministry but later recanted. Takieddine died this week in Beirut at age 75, days before the verdict.

This latest conviction adds to Sarkozy’s mounting legal troubles. Stripped of France’s prestigious Legion of Honour in June, he has previously been found guilty in two separate cases involving corruption and campaign overspending.