Sarkozy set to become France's first former president to serve jail term

Nicolas Sarkozy was told by prosecutors that he will be incarcerated on Oct 21, according to BFM TV, which added that the former president would be held in the Paris prison of La Sante

By Gaspard Sebag

 

Nicolas Sarkozy is next week set to become the first former French president in the modern era to go to jail, following his conviction for taking part in a criminal conspiracy to seek covert funding from Libya’s late dictator Moammar Qaddafi. 

He was told on Monday by prosecutors that he will be incarcerated on Oct 21, according to BFM TV, which added that the former president would be held in the Paris prison of La Santé. The date was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Sarkozy has appealed his conviction. 

 

His lawyer declined to comment on the incarceration date. A representative for the Parquet National Financier declined to comment.

 

The guilty finding was the culmination of a years-long investigation that began after Sarkozy left office more than a decade ago. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing; and has dismissed the allegations as an attempt by Qaddafi allies to punish him for leading an international intervention in 2011 that ended the late Libyan ruler’s 42-year grip on power.

 

The Paris judges focused primarily on a sequence of events in late 2005 — which began with a trip to Tripoli by Claude Guéant, the then-chief of staff of Sarkozy, who was interior minister at the time, and ended with another by Brice Hortefeux, one of Sarkozy’s longtime political allies.

 

Both men met covertly with Qaddafi’s right-hand man, Abdullah Senussi, who led Libya’s intelligence services and had been identified as a terrorist after his conviction in France over the 1989 bombing of a French airliner.

 

Sarkozy’s own trip to meet Qaddafi in Tripoli was also examined in court. Much speculation was made throughout the investigation, and during trial hearings, about whether they might have had a moment for a confidential conversation. But, in the end, the court considered that irrelevant as a pact to seek covert funding in exchange for political support could have been made by Sarkozy’s allies. 

 

According to the French judges, improving the legal situation of Senussi – who was facing an arrest warrant – may have been one of the foreseen quid pro quos in exchange for the alleged funding promise.

 

Ultimately, the Paris court dismissed a range of charges and convicted the trio for responding to an offer from Qaddafi’s regime to fund his presidential campaign in 2007 by forming a criminal conspiracy. They were found guilty, the judges wrote in their ruling, “regardless of the fact that no money was ultimately received, or only a very small amount.”

 

Sarkozy reacted to his conviction in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche. The ruling violates “all boundaries of the rule of law,” he said, and vowed to continue fighting to get it overturned. Guéant and Hortefeux are also challenging their conviction.