{"id":173297,"date":"2025-11-10T15:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/173297\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T15:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:19:07","slug":"sarkozy-to-be-freed-after-just-20-days-in-prison-and-placed-under-judicial-supervision-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/173297\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarkozy to be freed after just 20 days in prison and placed under judicial supervision \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A Paris appeals court has decided to release former French president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nicolas-sarkozy\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nicolas-sarkozy\">Nicolas Sarkozy<\/a> from prison and place him under judicial supervision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Monday\u2019s announcement came less than three weeks after Sarkozy began serving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/2025\/10\/21\/nicolas-sarkozy-leaves-home-to-begin-prison-sentence\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/2025\/10\/21\/nicolas-sarkozy-leaves-home-to-begin-prison-sentence\/\">a five-year sentence<\/a> for criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sarkozy (70) was expected to leave Paris\u2019s La Sant\u00e9 prison in the afternoon. He will be banned from leaving French territory, the court said. An appeal trial is expected to take place at a later date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sarkozy became the first former French head of state in modern times to be put behind bars after his conviction on September 25th. He denies wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He was jailed on October 21st pending appeal but immediately filed for early release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">During Monday\u2019s hearing, Sarkozy, speaking from prison via videolink, argued he had always met all justice requirements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI had never imagined I would experience prison at 70. This ordeal was imposed on me, and I lived through it. It\u2019s hard, very hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sarkozy also paid tribute to prison staff who he said helped him through \u201cthis nightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sarkozy\u2019s wife, supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and two of his sons attended the hearing at the Paris court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Monday\u2019s proceedings did not involve the motives for the sentencing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Still, Sarkozy told the court he never asked Libya\u2019s longtime ruler Muammar Gadafy for any financing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI will never admit something I didn\u2019t do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Under French law, release is the general rule pending appeal, while detention remains the exception.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The former president, who governed from 2007 to 2012, faces separate proceedings, including a November 26th ruling by France\u2019s highest court over illegal financing of his failed 2012 re-election bid, and an ongoing investigation into alleged witness tampering in the Libya case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2023, he was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated. France\u2019s highest court, the Court of Cassation, later upheld the verdict. &#8211; AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Paris appeals court has decided to release former French president Nicolas Sarkozy from prison and place him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,2220,6,11,12,56842,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-173297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-libya","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115526078556708040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}