Nicolas Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison, heavy fine in trial involving former ministers, high officials, businessmen
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will go on trial on Monday for allegedly receiving illegal finances from the regime of the late Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi for his presidential election campaign in 2007, according to media reports.
The trial in Paris is expected to end in April, BFMTV reported, adding that Sarkozy and 12 other suspects are facing charges of concealing embezzlement, passive corruption, illegal electoral campaign financing, and criminal association.
The illegal financing was exposed in 2012 by the independent French media outlet Mediapart, which revealed Libyan secret service notes allegedly proving a transfer of €50 million (approximately $51.6 million) a few months before the campaign began.
Other documents and transactions to bank accounts involving the then-French high officials, ministers, and businessmen are reportedly said to prove money transfers to Sarkozy.
Sarkozy and Gaddafi allegedly formed a corruption pact in 2005 in exchange for financial and industrial favors, the daily Le Monde reported.
After his election victory in 2007, Sarkozy went to Tripoli, and months later, he hosted Gaddafi in Paris to sign arms deals. He was also the first leader to call for an international military intervention in Libya in 2011.
Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison, a heavy fine, and restrictions on his civic rights, including his right to be elected into a public office.
Last month, France's highest appellate court—the Court of Cassation—confirmed the verdict against Sarkozy, the 70-year-old center-right politician, in the “Bismuth affair,” upholding his corruption conviction and ordering him to wear an electronic tag for a year, a first for a French president.
He had been sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended later.
The former president was wiretapped in 2013 after suspicions that he illegally funded his election campaign from Libyan sources.
Investigators found that the former president was using two other phone lines registered under Paul Bismuth. Sarkozy only communicated with his lawyer Thierry Herzog via those two numbers.
Sarkozy, who led the country from 2007 to 2012, and his lawyer Thierry Herzog were accused of bribing Gilbert Azibert, a former judge in the Cassation Court, in 2014 to obtain information about a judiciary investigation.
In exchange, Sarkozy promised the judge a prestigious job in Monaco.
