PARIS — A Paris court on Thursday sentenced former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison after finding him guilty of criminal conspiracy in an alleged scheme to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from Libya.
The historic ruling made Sarkozy the first former president of modern France sentenced to actual time behind bars. In a major surprise, the court ruled that the 70-year-old will be incarcerated despite his intention to appeal. It said the date of his imprisonment would be decided later, sparing the conservative leader the humiliation of being led from the packed courtroom in handcuffs.
The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a plot from 2005 to 2007 to finance his winning campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors. It cleared him of three other charges including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.
Sarkozy denounced the ruling.
“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison. But with my head held high. I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal,” he said with his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at his side.
“I ask the French people — whether they voted for me or not, whether they support me or not — to grasp what has just happened. Hatred truly knows no bounds,” he said.
The court described his behavior as “exceptionally serious” and said his involvement in efforts to raise campaign funds from Libya were “capable of undermining the citizen’s trust in public institutions.”
“The goal of the criminal conspiracy was to give you an advantage in the electoral campaign,” the court ruled.
Sarkozy was interior minister before winning the presidency in 2007. The court said he used his position “to prepare an act of corruption at the highest level.”
Sarkozy described the financing plot as simply “an idea.”
“I am being convicted for supposedly allowing two of my staff members to go ahead with the idea — the idea — of illegal financing for my campaign,” he said.
The court found that two of Sarkozy’s closest associates when he was president — former ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux — were guilty of criminal association, but likewise acquitted them of some other charges.
The chief judge, in an hours-long reading of the lengthy verdict, said Sarkozy allowed his associates to reach out to Libyan authorities “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya.”
But the court also said it couldn’t determine with certainty that Libyan money ended up financing Sarkozy’s campaign. The court explained that under French law, a corrupt scheme can still be a crime even if money wasn’t paid or cannot be proven.
Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 but lost his bid for reelection in 2012, denied all wrongdoing during a three-month trial earlier this year that involved 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.
Despite multiple legal scandals that have clouded his presidential legacy, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in right-wing politics in France and in entertainment circles, by virtue of his marriage to Bruni-Sarkozy.
Alleged Libya financing
The accusations trace their roots to 2011, when a Libyan news agency and former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi said the Libyan state had secretly funneled millions of euros into Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.
In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it said was a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a 50 million-euro funding agreement. Sarkozy denounced the document as a forgery and sued for defamation. The court ruled Thursday that it “now appears most likely that this document is a forgery.”
Investigators also looked into a series of trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy when he served as interior minister from 2005 and 2007, including his chief of staff.
In 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered suitcases filled with cash from Tripoli to the French Interior Ministry under Sarkozy. He later retracted his statement.
