The Court of Cassation rendered its decision this Wednesday, December 18 in the wiretapping case. She rejected the appeal made by the former President of the Republic.
The Court of Cassation rendered its decision this Wednesday, December 18 concerning Nicolas Sarkozy. The former head of state was declared definitively guilty, without recourse, on the so-called “wiretapping” file. His prison sentence of three years, including one year under bracelet, is therefore definitive.
Nicolas Sarkozy will not, however, be equipped with an electronic bracelet from this Wednesday. The Court of Cassation must transmit its judgment to the court of appeal. The latter will then transmit the elements to the Paris sentence enforcement service.
The so-called wiretapping affair has its origins in another legal case, that of the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2007 – a case for which he will be tried in early 2025. Investigators had discovered that the former head of the State had opened a second telephone line in the name of Paul Bismuth, an unofficial line.
“Corruption pact”
During conversations dating from 2013 and 2014, it was established by investigators and the courts that there had been corruption while Thierry Herzog had requested support from Nicolas Sarkozy to obtain a position in Monaco at the one of his acquaintances, Gilbert Azibert. In exchange, the latter, then a magistrate at the Court of Cassation, had to transmit information covered by secrecy on another legal case targeting Nicolas Sarkozy, the Bettencourt affair.
As a reminder, in this case, Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of “corruption” and “influence peddling”. In May 2023, the court of appeal confirmed his sentence at first instance to three years in prison, including one year to be served under an electronic bracelet. The former head of state also received three years of ineligibility and deprivation of civil rights.
Nicolas Sarkozy seizes the ECHR
“Nicolas Sarkozy will obviously comply with the sanction pronounced which is now final”, announced this Wednesday, December 18, his lawyer, Me Patrice Spinosi. “At the same time, he will appeal to the European Court in the coming weeks, as he is now entitled to do, to obtain the guarantee of the rights that the French judges have denied him,” he added.
This decision comes less than three weeks before the opening of the trial into suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, which begins on January 6.
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