Former French President Sarkozy Jailed Five Years

Former French President Sarkozy Jailed Five Years Over Gaddafi Bribe

PARIS – Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in connection with illicit campaign financing linked to late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The Paris Criminal Court delivered the verdict on Thursday after a three-month trial involving 11 defendants, including three ex-ministers and Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who admitted to ferrying millions in cash from Tripoli to Paris during Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.

Former French President Sarkozy

Although acquitted of charges of passive corruption and illegal campaign financing, Sarkozy, 70, was convicted of participating in a conspiracy that funneled millions of euros in undeclared Libyan funds into his political war chest.

The former French leader has consistently denied wrongdoing, dismissing the case as a political vendetta built on fabricated evidence. “What happened today is of extreme gravity for the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system,” Sarkozy told reporters outside the courthouse.

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The scandal has shadowed Sarkozy since 2011, when Gaddafi’s regime collapsed and documents and testimonies began surfacing about covert financial ties between Tripoli and Paris. Investigators first opened a probe in 2013, and by 2021, Sarkozy had already been convicted in a separate wiretapping case, receiving a three-year sentence for corruption and influence peddling.

Sarkozy, who governed France from 2007 to 2012, now faces a dramatic fall from grace. His conviction cements his place as the first former French president to serve jail time over corruption tied to foreign financing.