Sarkozy’s court defeat: a look at the legal cases involving France’s former president

PARIS (AP) — France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose conviction in a corruption case was made definitive by France’s highest court Wednesday, has been involved in a series of legal proceedings in recent years.

Another trial is to open next month over alleged Libya financing for his 2007 presidential campaign.

Sarkozy, 69, who was France’s president from 2007 to 2012, has denied any wrongdoing. He retired from active politics in 2017.

Here’s a look at legal cases involving him.

Wiretapping scandal

France’s Court of Cassation on Wednesday upheld an appeal court decision which had found Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state.

Sarkozy has been sentenced to a year in prison, but is expected to ask to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet as provided by French law.

He said he would bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Sarkozy was first found guilty in 2021 by a Paris court, a verdict confirmed in 2023 by an appeals court, for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.

Alleged Libya financing

Sarkozy and 12 others will go on trial in January 2025 on charges that his 2007 presidential campaign received millions in illegal financing from the government of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Sarkozy has been under investigation in the case since 2013. He is charged with passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, embezzlement of Libyan public funds and criminal association.

Investigators examined claims that Gadhafi’s government secretly gave Sarkozy 50 million euros ($52.3 million) for his winning 2007 campaign. The sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit at the time and would violate French rules against foreign campaign financing.

The investigation gained traction when French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told news site Mediapart in 2016 that he had delivered suitcases from Libya containing 5 million euros in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff. Takieddine later withdrew the allegation and Sarkozy sought to have the inquiry closed.

After becoming president in 2007, Sarkozy welcomed Gadhafi to France with high honors later that year. Sarkozy then put France at the forefront of NATO-led airstrikes that helped rebel fighters topple Gadhafi’s government in 2011.

Accusations of witness tampering

French investigative judges filed preliminary charges last year against Sarkozy for his alleged involvement in an attempt to mislead magistrates in order to clear him in the Libya financing case.

Financial prosecutors said Sarkozy is suspected of “benefitting from corruptly influencing a witness” — Takieddine — who accused him of receiving illegal campaign financing from Libya.

Sarkozy’s wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was given preliminary charges in July this year for alleged involvement in efforts to pressure Takieddine. Bruni-Sarkozy was placed under judicial supervision, which includes a ban on contact with all those involved in the proceedings with the exception of her husband.

Convicted for illegal campaign financing

In February this year, an appeals court in Paris upheld a guilty verdict against the former president for illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 re-election bid. Sarkozy was sentenced to a year in prison, of which six months were suspended.

Sarkozy is accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount of 22.5 million euros on the re-election bid that he lost to Socialist Francois Hollande.

Lawyers for Sarkozy, who has denied all allegations, have appealed to the Court of Cassation against the sentence in that case.

Sylvie Corbet, The Associated Press