Former French President Sarkozy loses final appeal for corruption, influence-peddling
Paris, Dec 19 (IANS) France’s highest court for civil and criminal cases upheld a verdict against former French President Nicholas Sarkozy for corruption and influence-peddling.
In 2021, a lower court found that Sarkozy and his former lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had in 2014 formed a “corruption pact” with judge Gilbert Azibert to obtain and share information about another legal investigation involving the former president, according to the French daily Le Monde.
Finding Sarkozy guilty, the court then handed a three-year sentence to Sarkozy, during which he would only need to serve one year of house arrest with an electronic bracelet, Xinhua news agency reported.
Sarkozy appealed against his 2021 conviction. In 2023, the Court of Appeal of Paris upheld the verdict.
Sarkozy, reacted by saying he was not prepared to accept “the profound injustice” and would now turn to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the verdict.
He was originally sentenced to three years in jail in 2021, but two of those years were suspended and the third converted to electronic monitoring instead of prison.
With the Cour de Cassation’s ruling on Wednesday, Sarkozy has become the first former French president who has been convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison in France.
Sarkozy was convicted of trying to bribe a judge in 2014, after he had left office, by suggesting he could secure a prestigious job for him in return for information about a separate case.
In the 2021 ruling, Judge Christine Mée said the conservative politician “knew what [he] was doing was wrong”, adding that his actions and those of his lawyer had given the public “a very bad image of justice”.
President from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy faces multiple legal cases. A trial will start in 2025 over allegations that he had accepted money from Libya to fund his 2007 campaign.
–IANS
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