Sarkozy sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy in the Gaddafi financing case

ParisAlready sentenced twice to prison terms for corruption and illicit campaign financing in 2012, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced this Thursday to five years in prison. This time, for conspiracy in the case of the alleged financing received from Libyan Rais Muammar Gaddafi for the campaign that led him to the Elysée Palace in 2007. He was also sentenced to a fine of 100,000 euros and a five-year ban from public office. The sentence can be appealed, but the former French president will still have to go to prison in the coming weeks.

Sarkozy has been acquitted of corruption, illegal campaign financing, and embezzlement of public funds because it could not be proven that money from the Gaddafi regime was used to finance the campaign. However, the court emphasized the "exceptional gravity" of the events and ordered—contrary to what some experts had predicted—a provisional prison sentence.

According to the ruling, what has been proven is that Gaddafi offered Sarkozy "financing" and that the money came from Libya. However, there is no evidence to determine where the money ended up; it was sent to various companies and accounts. offshore and they also handed themselves over in cash with suitcases. "The illicit association that the court has examined aimed to prepare active corruption and its laundering," said the president of the court, Nathalie Gavarino.

When Gavarino announced the sentence, a murmur of surprise was heard in the courtroom. The financial crimes prosecutor's office has summoned Sarkozy on October 13 to inform him of his prison date, which must be within four months at the latest. He will be the first former French head of state to go to prison. His lawyers could ask for his release on parole, given that the former conservative president has already turned 70, but he will have to go to prison for the time being.

"Scandal"

"If they want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep, but with my head held high. I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal," Sarkozy told the press moments after the verdict was made public. The former president asserted that the sentence "is extremely serious for the rule of law." The NGO Transparency International, which acted as a civil party in this trial, described it as an "unprecedented and courageous" act by the court.

The judicial investigation was initiated thanks to information published by the investigative media outlet. Mediapart. During a three-month trial, from January to April, the prosecution presented a "set of clues" based on witnesses from former Libyan officials, intercepted notes, and the confession of an obscure Franco-Lebanese mediator who prompted the opening of the case. This key intermediary in the prosecution, Ziad Takieddine, died in Beirut just two days ago. Takieddine was one of the defendants, tried in absentia because he refused to appear.

In the proceedings, The Prosecutor's Office demanded seven years in prison for Sarkozy and a fine of 300,000 euros, In addition, slightly lower prices were offered to two of his former ministers and other intermediaries. The former president denies the allegations and, during the trial, he took pains to emphasize that no trace had been found of the money allegedly paid by Tripoli for his campaign. This argument did not seem to convince the president of the court, who warned that direct evidence is rarely found in corruption cases, but that the accumulation of evidence can also lead to conviction.

Pending judicial matters

Sarkozy, who between February and May had to carry an electronic bracelet to guarantee the house arrest to which he was finally sentenced Last December, for another previous sentence, he has not stopped facing justice since his defeat to Socialist François Hollande in 2012. And he still has cases pending trial.

But the sentence now imposed on him is higher than the one that condemned him to house arrest, both due to the seriousness of the acts he is accused of and the consequences of having received money from a regime like Gaddafi's, which years later he helped overthrow with direct military intervention. The prosecution developed the story of collusion between Sarkozy and the Libyan regime, which supposedly ended with a "corruption pact" signed at a meeting with Gaddafi in Tripoli in 2005, when Sarkozy was Interior Minister. From there, the investigation and some media outlets uncovered a series of clues, including money transfers that gradually left a trail and testimonies from former Libyan regime officials, collected after its fall in 2011. There was also evidence of meetings between two cabinet members before he entrusted him with the Interior portfolio—and Brice Hortefeux, his best friend, who also held that same ministerial portfolio—with shady figures in the Libyan regime. One of them is Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Abdullah al-Senussi, an influential figure in the regime, who was serving a life sentence in France for the 1989 plane bombing that killed 170 people, 54 of them French. Among other clues, the prosecution maintains that this proves the existence of the pact, fueled by the diaries found by banker Wahib Nacer, in which he recorded the payments, and which allowed investigators to follow his trail.

The defense considers this a "hypothetical story" fabricated without evidence and that it does not prove the existence of illegal financing. Sarkozy forcefully maintains his innocence, as he did in previous trials. In March 2021, he was sentenced to one year in prison for influence peddling and corruption, a sentence upheld two years later on appeal and by the Supreme Court last December, which required him to wear the electronic bracelet. In September 2021, he was sentenced to one year in prison for illegal financing of his 2012 campaign, a sentence that was halved on appeal and on which the Supreme Court will rule next month. He is also accused of trying to silence the Takieddine witness, a case in which his wife, Carla Bruni, has also been implicated.