Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been finally sentenced to three years in prison (two of them suspended) for “corruption” and “influence peddling” in the so-called “wiretapping case.”.
The highest court in France, the Court of Cassation, confirmed the Court of Appeal’s May 2023 verdict on Wednesday, December 18, Le Monde reported.
This case, which may not be the most prominent of all the cases opened against Nicolas Sarkozy, has already gone down in history. For the first time, the former French president was sentenced to a real term of imprisonment.
A “real” prison sentence at home with a bracelet
The former French president will serve one year of his “real” prison sentence at home with an electronic bracelet and restrictions on his movements.
However, this is not the only issue facing the former French president, Sarkozy, who is well-known for his friendship with Putin.
The French Court of Cassation has finally upheld the guilty verdict against Sarkozy in the “wiretapping case” initiated in 2014 by wiretapping the former president’s phone conversations with his lawyer, Thierry Herzog.
The Court of Appeal delivered its verdict in 2021. The former president appealed the verdict, which the Court of Appeal upheld in May 2023.
Sarkozy appealed this decision to the highest and last instance, the Court of Cassation, which put the final point in the trial.
Sarkozy, along with two other defendants—his former lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and Gilbert Azibert, a former assistant prosecutor general at the Court of Cassation—was finally convicted of corruption and influence peddling.
All three were sentenced to the same basic punishment: three years in prison (two years suspended) with a one-year term served at their place of residence with an electronic bracelet.
Nicolas Sarkozy is also banned from voting, standing for election, or holding positions in the justice system for three years.
Sarkozy reacted to the final verdict in the wiretapping case by denying his guilt once again:
“I want to reiterate my complete innocence, and I remain convinced of my innocence in this case. In this case, as in others, I am determined. The truth will eventually prevail. When it does, everyone will be held accountable to the French people.”
If Sarkozy commits a new offense within five years, actual imprisonment could replace the suspended part of his two-year sentence.
Since Sarkozy will turn 70 on January 28, he will be able, according to the law, to apply for parole before he has served half of his sentence (this right is provided for convicts over 70).
Historic sentence to former French president
Having decided to tap Nicolas Sarkozy’s phones in late 2013 in connection with other criminal cases, including the “Libyan case” and the so-called “Bettancourt case,” investigators learned that one of the numbers he used was registered in the name of Israeli businessman Paul Bismuth.
Using this number, Sarkozy agreed with his lawyer Ercog to receive confidential information about the course of investigations (in which his name appeared) from Gilbert Azibert, who at that time held the position of the first advocate general (assistant prosecutor general) at the Court of Cassation.
In exchange for this information, Azibert, according to the investigation, was promised a well-paid high position in the judicial system of the Principality of Monaco.
At the same time, all three defendants in the case declared (and continue to declare) their innocence in court. Their lawyers also accuse the prosecutor’s office of violating attorney-client privilege (by wiretapping Sarkozy’s conversations with Herzog).
However, the judges did not accept the arguments of the defendants and upheld the sentence against the former French president.
Thus, this case, which may not be the most prominent of all the cases opened against Sarkozy, went down in history.
Nicolas Sarkozy became the first former French president to stand trial in person. In 2011, former President Jacques Chirac was sentenced to suspended imprisonment for financial irregularities, but the verdict was passed in the absence of the former head of state.
However, there is an even more important precedent—for the first time, a former French president was sentenced (albeit formally) to a real term.
Sarkozy faces conviction in two other cases
The final verdict in the “wiretapping case” was passed shortly before another criminal trial against former President Sarkozy began on January 6.
He is due to stand trial in Paris in a case involving the alleged financing of the 2007 presidential campaign by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the essence of the case is that Sarkozy, with the help of people close to him, “entered into a corruption pact” with Muammar Gaddafi in the fall of 2005. The Libyan dictator provided funding for Sarkozy’s election campaign, the prosecution says.
And after the latter became president in 2007, Gaddafi received all sorts of “thanks” from France in return.
Thus, Sarkozy faces 10 years in prison under articles on passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, criminal conspiracy, and concealment of misappropriation of Libyan public funds.
The trial will last four months, until April 10.
Sarkozy has an appeal scheduled for next fall in another case—the “illegal financing” of the 2012 presidential election campaign.
According to the so-called “Bygmalion case,” it is about the creation of a fraudulent scheme in which the costs of election rallies were accounted for as expenses for purely party events, which allowed the presidential campaign to spend much more money than allowed by French law.
In this case, the Court of Appeal sentenced Sarkozy to a year in prison.
However, even here, the former president will have to serve only half of his sentence (if the appeal fails) and also be under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
Finally, among the many other political and financial scandals in which the former French head of state is somehow “involved,” there is the “Russian money” case, which is still at the preliminary investigation stage.
