Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy convicted of corruption
A French court on Monday sentenced former President Nicolas Sarkozy to three years in prison; for corruption and influence-peddling but suspended two years of the sentence.
President from 2007 to 2012, he was found guilty of trying to illegally obtain information from a senior magistrate in 2014; about an ongoing investigation into his campaign finances.
The Paris prosecutor had requested a two-year prison sentence and a two-year suspended sentence for Sarkozy and his co-defendants; his lawyer Thierry Herzog and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
Herzog and Azibert were found guilty and handed prison sentences.
However, the 66-year-old Sarkozy, who denied all wrongdoing, may not spend any time in prison. Two years of his sentence were suspended, and the presiding judge said she would accept allowing him to be tagged with an electronic bracelet outside of prison for the remaining year.
“He took advantage of his status and the relationships he had made,” presiding judge Christine Mee told the court.
Dubbed the “wiretapping case,” it began in 2013 when investigators bugged phones belonging to Sarkozy and his lawyer Herzog, in the context of an inquiry against Sarkozy.
They discovered that the two men promised senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert a prestigious position in Monaco; in exchange for information about an ongoing inquiry into claims that Sarkozy had accepted illegal payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his successful 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy also faces other accusations. In just over two weeks’ time; he will once again be on trial accused of violating campaign financing rules during his failed 2012 re-election bid; by working with a friendly public relations firm to hide the true cost of his campaign.
The guilty verdict against Sarkozy makes him the second ex-French president in recent years to be convicted of corruption. His predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was convicted in 2011.
