Newsroom
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison after a court found him guilty of running a criminal conspiracy and accepting illegal campaign money from Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The ruling, delivered Thursday, makes Sarkozy the first French head of state in modern history to face actual prison time. Judges also fined him €100,000 and barred him from voting or holding office for the same five-year period.
According to Le Monde, Sarkozy, 70, must report to prosecutors on Oct. 13 to be told when his sentence will begin. Filing an appeal will not delay his incarceration.
Speaking outside the courtroom, Sarkozy called the decision “a scandal” and insisted he is innocent. “If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high,” he told reporters. “Of course I will appeal. I will fight to the end to prove my innocence.”
His lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, confirmed the appeal was already being filed, calling it a “stunning contradiction” that Sarkozy was acquitted on many charges but still handed such a heavy sentence.
Judges also fined him €100,000 and barred him from voting or holding office for the same five-year period.
The investigation began in 2013, two years after Gadhafi’s son publicly accused Sarkozy of taking millions from Libya to fund his 2007 presidential campaign. A year later, Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine claimed he had written proof that Sarkozy’s campaign was “generously” financed from Tripoli, with payments continuing even after Sarkozy won the presidency.
Among others convicted in the same trial were Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Guéant, found guilty of corruption, and former Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, convicted of criminal conspiracy.
Despite losing France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur, earlier this year, Sarkozy remains a polarizing but influential figure in French politics. He recently met with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, once his protégé, and even praised Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally as now part of France’s “democratic arc.”
Sarkozy has faced a series of legal setbacks since leaving office in 2012. Last year, France’s Supreme Court upheld a conviction for corruption and influence peddling, forcing him to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year, a first for any French ex-president. He also lost an appeal in a separate case over illegal financing of his failed 2012 re-election bid, with a final ruling still pending.
