PARIS: France&#39;s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy is to be jailed on Tuesday over a scheme to acquire Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential run, becoming the first former head of an EU country to serve time behind bars.&nbsp;Sarkozy, France&#39;s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, was convicted in late September of criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to fund his electoral campaign.&nbsp;The former state leader, who has appealed the verdict and denounced an &quot;injustice&quot;, is to be incarcerated in the Parisian prison La Sante.&nbsp;&quot;If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison -- but with my head held high,&quot; he told the press after his September 25 verdict.&nbsp;Sarkozy is to be the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state of France&#39;s Vichy regime, who was jailed after World War II.&nbsp;He is likely to be held in one of the cells of nine square metres (95 square feet) in the prison&#39;s solitary confinement wing, prison staff have told AFP.&nbsp;This would avoid Sarkozy having to interact with other prisoners or them taking pictures of him with one of the many mobile phones that are smuggled inside, they said, requesting anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the press.&nbsp;&#39;Exceptional gravity&#39;It is unclear how long Sarkozy will remain in jail.&nbsp;Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said during Sarkozy&#39;s sentencing that the offences were of &quot;exceptional gravity&quot;, and therefore ordered him to be incarcerated even if he filed an appeal.&nbsp;But Sarkozy&#39;s lawyers are expected to request his release as soon as he sets foot inside the jail, and the appeals trial has two months to examine it.&nbsp;In theory, the court can decide against letting the former president out of prison if, for example, it deems it the only way to prevent evidence tampering or witness intimidation.&nbsp;If not, it could order his release under judicial supervision or home arrest with an ankle tag.&nbsp;Until the court makes a decision, Sarkozy is expected to spend a considerable amount of time alone.&nbsp;Under solitary confinement, prisoners are allowed out of their cells for one walk a day, alone, in a yard of several square metres.&nbsp;Legal troublesSarkozy has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing re-election in 2012.&nbsp;He has also been convicted in two separate trials. In one, he served a graft sentence for trying to extract favours from a judge with an electronic ankle tag, which was removed after several months in May.&nbsp;In the so-called &quot;Libyan case&quot; that ended in a prison sentence, prosecutors argued that his aides, acting with his authority and in his name, struck a deal with Qaddafi&nbsp;in 2005 to fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later illegally.&nbsp;Investigators believe that in return, Qaddafi&nbsp;was promised help to restore his international image after the West blamed Tripoli for bombing a plane in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.&nbsp;But the court&#39;s ruling did not follow the prosecutors&#39; conclusion that Sarkozy received or used the funds for his campaign.&nbsp;It acquitted him on separate charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption, and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.&nbsp;&nbsp;&#39;Come and show support&#39;Sarkozy was stripped of France&#39;s highest distinction, the Legion of Honour, following the graft conviction.&nbsp;Six out of ten people living in France believe the latest prison sentence to be &quot;fair,&quot; according to a survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted by pollster Elabe.&nbsp;But Sarkozy still enjoys some popularity on the French right.&nbsp;His son, Louis Sarkozy, who writes for a far-right newspaper and is running for mayor in southern France, on Saturday called for people to &quot;come and show support&quot; for his father outside his home on Tuesday morning.&nbsp;The presiding judge in the conspiracy trial received death threats after her verdict last month, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call out such attacks as &quot;unacceptable publicly.&quot;&nbsp;Other famous people held at La Sante over the years include Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, who has since been moved.&nbsp;More recently, French model agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a close associate of convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead in his cell at La Sante in 2022. He had been charged with the rape of minors.

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Sarkozy is to be the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state of France's Vichy regime, who was jailed after World War II.

France's ex-president Sarkozy to go to jail

PARIS: French authorities said Friday they have launched two investigations into threats targeting the presiding judge in the conspiracy trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was jailed for five years.&nbsp;The magistrates&#39; union said the judge, Nathalie Gavarino, had received death threats and messages threatening her with &quot;serious violence&quot; in the wake of Thursday&#39;s verdict.&nbsp;A special anti-online hate task force will lead the investigations.&nbsp;&quot;Freedom of speech, including online, stops when it crosses the line into putting people in danger,&quot; the Paris prosecutors&#39; office said.&nbsp;Sarkozy, 70, was accused of striking a deal with Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his 2007 presidential run, in exchange for helping the late leader restore his international image.&nbsp;The right-winger, France&#39;s president from 2007 to 2012, was acquitted of corruption and personally accepting illegal campaign financing but convicted on criminal conspiracy charges.&nbsp;Sarkozy, who denies wrongdoing, called the verdict &quot;a scandal,&quot; and has appealed.&nbsp;But he will be the first French postwar leader to serve jail time, even as he waits for his appeal to play out.&nbsp;Sarkozy was also fined 100,000 euros ($117,000) and banned from holding public office.&nbsp;He had previously been convicted in two separate trials, but always avoided jail, in one case serving his graft sentence with an electronic tag, which has since been removed.

The magistrates' union says the judge, Nathalie Gavarino, has received death threats and messages threatening her with "serious violence" in the wake of Thursday's verdict.

France probes threats against judge who sentenced Sarkozy

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 a scheme to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from Libya. The ruling made Sarkozy the first former president of modern France sentenced to actual time behind bars. The court said his imprisonment would start at a date yet to be fixed, sparing the 70-year-old the humiliation of being led out of the courtroom by police. He intends to appeal.&nbsp;The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a plot from 2005 to 2007, when he served as interior minister, to finance his winning presidential campaign with Libyan funds 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.&nbsp;Sarkozy denounced the ruling as a humiliation for France. &ldquo;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,&quot; he said, standing beside his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.&nbsp;Chief judge Nathalie Gavarino told Sarkozy: &ldquo;The goal of the criminal conspiracy was to give you an advantage in the electoral campaign&rdquo; and &ldquo;to prepare an act of corruption at the highest possible level.&rdquo; She said the facts were &ldquo;exceptionally serious&rdquo; and capable of undermining citizens&rsquo; trust in public institutions.&nbsp;The court found that Sarkozy&rsquo;s closest associates, former ministers Claude Gu&eacute;ant and Brice Hortefeux, were guilty of criminal association. Hortefeux received a two-year sentence to be served outside prison with an electronic bracelet, while Gu&eacute;ant was given six years but wasn&rsquo;t immediately jailed for health reasons. The court said both held secret meetings in 2005 with Abdullah al-Senoussi, intelligence chief and brother-in-law of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.&nbsp;The Paris court described the contacts as a &ldquo;corruption pact,&rdquo; noting that favors offered to Libya included talks about al-Senoussi&rsquo;s judicial fate, nuclear cooperation, and French efforts to help Libya shed pariah status. While it couldn&rsquo;t confirm Libyan money was delivered, it ruled that under French law, a corrupt scheme can still be criminal even if money is not proven.&nbsp;Allegations of Libyan financing emerged in 2011 when Gadhafi and Libyan media claimed millions had been funneled into Sarkozy&rsquo;s campaign.&nbsp;&nbsp;In 2012, Mediapart published a memo referencing a &euro;50 million deal, though the court later said it &ldquo;now appears most likely&rdquo; to be a forgery.&nbsp;Investigators also examined claims from Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who alleged delivering suitcases of cash from Tripoli to Sarkozy&rsquo;s office.He later retracted his statement, sparking a separate inquiry into possible witness tampering involving Sarkozy and his wife. That case is ongoing. Takieddine, a co-defendant, died Tuesday in Beirut.&nbsp;During the trial, Sarkozy denounced the case as a &ldquo;plot&rdquo; by the Gadhafi clan in retaliation for his role in pushing for military intervention against the dictator in 2011.&nbsp;Sarkozy&rsquo;s political legacy has been tarnished by a series of convictions. In June, he was stripped of the Legion of Honor after a 2014 corruption conviction, for which he served time under electronic monitoring. He was also convicted of illegal financing in his failed 2012 re-election bid, a verdict now under appeal.

A Paris court sentenced former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy linked to Libyan campaign financing. Sarkozy, denying wrongdoing, called the verdict a scandal and vowed to appeal.

Articles tagged with "Nicolas Sarkozy"

France's ex-president Sarkozy to go to jail

France probes threats against judge who sentenced Sarkozy

Paris court convicts Sarkozy, five-year prison in Libyan case