Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was definitively sentenced for corruption of a magistrate and influence peddling to 3 years in prison, one of which without parole, with the benefit of electronic bracelet. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal of Sarkozy’s lawyers against the final sentence on appeal in May 2023. For the former French head of state, the sentence also includes three years of ineligibility and deprivation of civil rights.
The lawyers will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. «Nicolas Sarkozy will obviously respect the sanction pronounced which is now definitive», commented the lawyer Patrice Spinosi. “At the same time, in the coming weeks he will turn to the European Court, as he now has the right to do, to obtain the guarantee of the rights that the French judges have denied him,” he added. However, this postponement does not prevent the enforcement of the sanctions imposed.
The story, known as “case of wiretaps” (wiretapping affair), originates from another judicial investigation, the one into the alleged Libyan financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign, a case for which the former Head of State will be tried at the beginning of 2025. The investigators had discovered that the former president had opened a second phone line under the name Paul Bismuth, an unofficial line. During conversations dating back to 2013 and 2014, investigators and justice ascertained an act of corruption.
Sarkozy’s legal historian, Thierry Herzoghad requested the support of the former president to obtain a position in Monaco for an acquaintance of his, Gilbert Azibert. In exchange, the latter, then a magistrate of the Court of Cassation, was supposed to provide information covered by judicial secrecy on another case involving Sarkozy, known as affare Bettencourt. In this context, Sarkozy was found guilty of “corruption” and “influence peddling”. In May 2023, the Court of Appeal confirmed the first instance sentence of three years in prison, of which one to be served with an electronic bracelet.
