France\u2019s highest court has upheld an appeal court decision which had found former President\u00a0Nicolas Sarkozy\u00a0guilty of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy, 69, faces a year in prison, but is expected to ask to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet \u2014 as is the case for any sentence of two years or less.<\/p>\n
He was found\u00a0guilty of corruption and influence peddling\u00a0by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe convictions and sentences are therefore final,\u201d a Court of Cassation statement on Wednesday said.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy, who was France\u2019s president from 2007 to 2012, retired from public life in 2017 though still plays an influential role in French conservative politics. He was among the guests who attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy, in a statement posted on X, said \u201cI will assume my responsibilities and face all the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI have no intention of complaining. But I am not prepared to accept the profound injustice done to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarkozy said he will seek to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights, and hopes those proceedings will result in \u201cFrance being condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reiterated his \u201cfull innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy determination is total in this case as in all others,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy\u2019s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said his client \u201cwill comply\u201d with the ruling. This means the former president will have to wear an electronic bracelet, Spinosi said.<\/p>\n
It is the first time in France\u2019s modern history that a former president has been convicted and sentenced to a prison term for actions during his term.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy\u2019s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty in 2011 of misuse of public money during his time as Paris mayor and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence.<\/p>\n
Sarkozy has been\u00a0involved in several\u00a0other legal cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
He faces\u00a0another trial next month\u00a0in Paris over accusations he took millions of dollars from then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to illegally finance his successful 2007 campaign.<\/p>\n
The corruption case that led to Wednesday’s ruling focused on phone conversations that took place in February 2014.<\/p>\n
At the time, investigative judges had launched an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy\u2019s 2007 presidential campaign. During the inquiry, they discovered that Sarkozy and his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, were communicating via secret mobile phones registered to the alias \u201cPaul Bismuth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiretapped conversations on those phones led prosecutors to suspect Sarkozy and Herzog of promising magistrate Gilbert Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about another legal case involving Sarkozy. Azibert never got the post and legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the case he was seeking information about.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors had concluded, however, that the proposal still constitutes corruption under French law, even if the promise wasn\u2019t fulfilled. Sarkozy vigorously denied any malicious intention in his offer to help Azibert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France\u2019s highest court has upheld an appeal court decision which had found former President\u00a0Nicolas Sarkozy\u00a0guilty of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state. Sarkozy, 69, faces a year in prison, but is expected to ask to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet \u2014 as is the case for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":217641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-te-public"],"yoast_head":"\n