Former French President Sarkozy Faces Court Ruling
Paris, France – Nicolas Sarkozy, who once led France, has been found guilty on one charge in a Paris court. The case involves questions about how his 2007 presidential campaign was funded, with some alleging money came from Libya’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi.
The court is still working through the details of the ruling and hasn’t yet announced the sentence for Sarkozy, who is 70 years old. Sarkozy has the option to appeal the guilty verdict, which would put any sentence on hold while the appeal is considered.
The court decided that Sarkozy was part of a criminal plan between 2005 and 2007 to get money from Libya for his campaign in return for political favors. However, he was found not guilty on three other charges, including corruption and illegal campaign finance practices.
Criminal association is a serious accusation, and it could mean up to 10 years in prison.
Two of Sarkozy’s close helpers during his time as president, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, were also found guilty of criminal association but were cleared of some other charges as well.
The court’s decision suggests they believe there was a plan to seek Libyan money for Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign. However, the judges weren’t sure if Sarkozy was directly part of getting the money or if any Libyan funds were actually used in his campaign.
The main judge said that Sarkozy allowed his close associates to contact Libyan officials “to get or try to get financial support in Libya to help fund his campaign.”
Even so, the court said it couldn’t say for sure that Libyan money was used to fund Sarkozy’s campaign. But, according to French law, a corrupt plan can still be a crime even if money wasn’t paid or if it can’t be proven that it was.
Sarkozy, along with his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was in the courtroom when the ruling was announced.
Sarkozy, who won the 2007 election but lost his reelection bid in 2012, has said he did nothing wrong during the three-month trial. There were 11 other people involved in the case, including three former ministers.
Even with these legal issues, Sarkozy is still an important person in French politics and entertainment.
The allegations go back to 2011, when a Libyan news source and Gadhafi himself said that Libya secretly gave millions of euros to Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.
In 2012, a French news outlet, Mediapart, released what they said was a Libyan intelligence document about a 50 million-euro funding agreement. Sarkozy said the document was fake and sued for defamation. The court has now ruled that the document “appears most likely to be a forgery.”
Investigators also looked at trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy when he was the interior minister from 2005 to 2007.
In 2016, businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had taken suitcases full of cash from Libya to the French Interior Ministry when Sarkozy was in charge. He later took back his statement.
That change in his story is now being looked at in a separate investigation into possible witness tampering. Sarkozy and his wife have been accused of trying to pressure Takieddine. That case hasn’t gone to trial yet.
Takieddine, who was also involved in the current case, recently passed away in Beirut.
Prosecutors claimed that Sarkozy knew about and benefited from a “corruption pact” with Gadhafi’s government.
Sarkozy has called the allegations politically motivated and based on fake evidence. He said the accusations were revenge for his call to remove Gadhafi from power.
Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to support military action in Libya in 2011.
Recently, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal, France’s highest award, after being found guilty in a separate case of corruption and influence peddling. He was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year but was later allowed to remove it early because of his age.
In another case, Sarkozy was found guilty of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 reelection campaign. He has denied the allegations and is appealing the verdict.
