Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to five years in prison over illegal Libya campaign funding from Gaddafi, in a historic Paris court ruling [Image by La Parisien]
(The Post News)– Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday by a Paris court after he was found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a historic trial of improper campaign finance from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The ruling that sent shockwaves throughout French politics was the first time since modern French history that a former president had been jailed.
The judge, Nathalie Gavarino, who presided over the trial, had characterized the offenses as “exceptional gravity” and “apt to undermine citizens’ trust” in democratic institutions. Sarkozy, 70, was also fined €100,000.
The ruling was unprecedented in that the court forced him to serve time in prison even on appeal, a rare move in French legal tradition. Sarkozy’s lawyers will undoubtedly appeal the ruling, but Sarkozy glared belligerently outside the court and vowed not to crack.
“If they wish for me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high,” Sarkozy told reporters, his wife, Italian-born singer and ex-model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, by his side. “This decision is of the utmost seriousness for the rule of law. I am innocent, and I will struggle right until the end to prove it.”
Alleged Pact with Gaddafi
The case revolved around allegations that Sarkozy secretly agreed with Gaddafi in 2005, when he was France’s interior minister, to receive millions of euros for his 2007 presidential campaign. As a quid pro quo, prosecutors said, Sarkozy promised to restore the international standing of Gaddafi after decades of isolation due to Libya’s ties to terrorism.
Agents were relying on the word of seven former Libyan officials, financial records of money transfer transactions, and the diaries of Libya’s former oil minister, Shukri Ghanem, who mysteriously drowned in the Danube River in Vienna in 2012. Shortly after becoming president in 2007, the former president welcomed Gaddafi to Paris for a state visit. The Libyan leader famously pitched his Bedouin tent near the Élysée Palace, a spectacle that symbolized his return to the global stage.
But the alliance was short-lived. By 2011, Sarkozy spearheaded NATO-led airstrikes against Gaddafi’s regime during the Arab Spring, helping rebels overthrow and ultimately kill the Libyan leader. While Sarkozy was convicted of conspiracy to commit an offense, the court acquitted him of the remaining three charges: passive corruption, illegal financing of election campaigns, and hiding Libyan public funds that were diverted.
Some of Sarkozy’s closest allies were also convicted. His former chief of staff and campaign chief, Claude Guéant, was sentenced to six years in prison. Former minister Brice Hortefeux received a two-year prison sentence. Eric Woerth, formerly the campaign treasurer for Sarkozy and currently a member of President Emmanuel Macron‘s centrist party, was acquitted.
The case is one of the most intricate French financial scandals on record, involving top-level diplomacy, arms sales, and black economic networks stretching throughout Europe and North Africa. Dramatically, the trial on Tuesday was overshadowed by the unexpected death of Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, 75, who was a key witness in the case. Takieddine testified that he had brought €5 million in cash from Gaddafi to Sarkozy’s entourage in 2006 and 2007.
Despite the later retraction of his allegations, to contradict himself again, Takieddine’s fluctuating evidence had fueled rumors of witness intimidation. Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are now separately investigated on suspicion of intimidating Takieddine into retracting his claims.
His death from a cardiac arrest in Beirut, where he was in exile to avoid a French arrest warrant, has provoked further doubt over comparable cases pending.
Sarkozy’s Legal Troubles
President between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy has endured a string of courtroom defeats since his fall from power.
In 2021, he was convicted of corruption and bribery and received a one-year prison sentence, part of which he spent under an electronic bracelet at home. In 2024, he was convicted in the “Bygmalion affair” of excessive spending on his failed 2012 re-election bid. He was sentenced to one year, six months suspended. He has already lost France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor.
Despite these attitudes, Sarkozy has not lost his firm position in conservative politics, and he continues to receive right-wing and centrist politicians in meetings, including Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu last month.
At least for now, the former president is still set on becoming a political persecution victim. “What they’ve embarrassed today isn’t me, but France, the image of France,” he said to reporters. With Thursday’s ruling, Sarkozy has the biggest test of his post-presidency life: weeks away from prison time, unless his appeal somehow prevails.
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