Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to three years in prison for corruption and influence peddling

Former French President Nicolas sarkozy (2007-2012) was sentenced this Monday to 3 years in prison, two of them pending, for corruption Yes Bribery.

The Paris Criminal Court ruled that there was a “corruption pact” between the 66-year-old president, his regular lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former magistrate Gilbert Azibert, that they were sentenced to the same sentence.

Sarkozy thus becomes the second former president of modern France, after the deceased Jacques Chirac, a ser found guilty of corruption. Although Sarkozy is the first former tenant of the Elysée Palace to be sentenced to prison.

The Court clarified that two of those years in prison are exempt from compliance and the third year in prison the company can be transformed into house arrest The monitoring with an electronic bracelet.

Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, denied the charges Yes declared himself a victim of a witch hunt by financial prosecutors who he said used excessive means to investigate his cases.

Retired from politics but still influential among conservatives, Sarkozy has 10 days to appeal the decision.

Prosecutors persuaded judges that Sarkozy had offered to secure a post in Monaco by then judge of the Supreme Court Gilbert Azibert in exchange for confidential information on an investigation into illegal payments received from the heir to L’Oréal, Liliane bettencourt, for his 2007 presidential campaign.

The corruption plot came to light in telephone conversations intercepted by police in 2014 between Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog, as part of another investigation into alleged Libyan financing of the same campaign.

The sentence includes the “Particular gravity” of the crime committed by Sarkozy due to his status as former president, that “He used his position and his connections” for “his personal interest”, which discredits a position which, by the Constitution, gives it the power to balance justice.

Also, take the verdict, Sarkozy should know the offenses committed by his status as a lawyer by training.

Too it was very hard against Herzog, one of the most renowned lawyers in Paris, Yes against Azibert, of whom he accused “To discredit a profession whose function is fundamental in a democracy.”

Sarkozy’s historic conviction arises two weeks before the opening of another process in which the former president is involved, that of the alleged irregularities concerning the financing of his campaign for the presidential elections of 2012.

(With information from Reuters and EFE)

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