{"id":493119,"date":"2025-10-12T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493119\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:18:12","slug":"sarkozy-prison-date-to-be-set-heres-why-the-former-french-president-will-serve-time-despite-appeal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493119\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarkozy prison date to be set. Here’s why the former French president will serve time despite appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS (AP) \u2014 The date for Nicolas Sarkozy\u2019s imprisonment will be set Monday, after the former French president was sentenced to five years in prison<\/a> for criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his winning 2007 campaign with funds from Libya.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy, 70, says he\u2019s innocent. He denounced the verdict as \u201ca scandal\u201d and filed an appeal. He is the first former president of modern France sentenced to actual time behind bars. <\/p>\n

Sarkozy, who was involved in several other legal cases<\/a>, was France\u2019s president from 2007 to 2012. He has been retired from active politics for years but remains very influential, especially in conservative circles. <\/p>\n

Why Sarkozy is going to prison<\/p>\n

In a surprise decision, the Paris court said the prison sentence, which would otherwise have been suspended on appeal, is effective immediately.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy must be incarcerated without delay, the court explained, because \u201cof the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense,\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Sarkozy was given 18 days since the ruling to \u201corganize his professional life\u201d before his summoning by the National Financial Prosecutor\u2019s office to set a date for incarceration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"French<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarkozy\u2019s supporters criticized the ruling because Sarkozy, since he appealed, is presumed to be innocent according to French law.<\/p>\n

The debate has been recently revived after far-right leader Marine Le Pen was sentenced in March to a five-year ban on running for public office<\/a> for embezzling EU funds, also taking effect immediately despite her appeal. <\/p>\n

Sarkozy\u2019s case does not appear as an exception in France\u2019s judicial system. The justice ministry said in 2024, 90% of adults convicted and sentenced to at least two years in prison were immediately incarcerated.<\/p>\n

What Sarkozy has been convicted of<\/p>\n

The court said Sarkozy, as a presidential candidate and interior minister, used his position \u201cto prepare corruption at the highest level\u201d from 2005 to 2007, to finance his presidential campaign with funds from Libya \u2014 then led by longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.<\/p>\n

The panel of three judges stated that Sarkozy\u2019s closest associates, Claude Gu\u00e9ant and Brice Hortefeux, held secret meetings in 2005 with Abdullah al-Senoussi, Gadhafi\u2019s brother-in-law and intelligence chief, despite the fact that he was \u201cconvicted of acts of terrorism committed mostly against French and European citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Senoussi is considered the mastermind of attacks on a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and a French airliner over Niger the following year \u2014 causing hundreds of deaths. He was convicted and sentenced in absentia to a life sentence by a Paris court in 1999 for the attack on the French UTA Flight 772. <\/p>\n

The court also said there was evidence Sarkozy endorsed meetings between Gu\u00e9ant, then his chief of staff, and an intermediary able to provide secret financial arrangements. <\/p>\n

Why he says it\u2019s a plot<\/p>\n

Sarkozy consistently said he is innocent and the victim of \u201ca plot\u201d staged by some people linked to the Libyan government, including what he described as the \u201cGadhafi clan.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested that the allegations of campaign financing were retaliation for his call \u2014 as France\u2019s president \u2014 for Gadhafi\u2019s removal. <\/p>\n

Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya in 2011, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world. Gadhafi was toppled and killed in the uprising that same year, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.<\/p>\n

In addition, Sarkozy insists the court cleared him of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.<\/p>\n

The court said there\u2019s no evidence the money transferred from Libya to France ended up being used in Sarkozy\u2019s 2007 campaign and acknowledged it was not used to serve his \u201cdirect personal enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n

What comes next<\/p>\n

For safety reasons, Sarkozy is expected to be incarcerated under conditions reserved for high-profile inmates, possibly in a special area that has been dubbed the \u201cVIP area\u201d of La Sant\u00e9 prison, the only prison located in Paris. This is where some of France\u2019s most notorious criminals have been imprisoned.<\/p>\n

Once behind bars, Sarkozy will be able to file a release request to the appeals court. Judges will then have up to two months to process the request.<\/p>\n

An appeal trial is to take place at a later date, possibly next spring. <\/p>\n

French business owner Pierre Botton, who is a friend of Sarkozy, spent almost four years in prison in two separate cases, including from 2020 to 2022 at La Sant\u00e9.<\/p>\n

He described incarceration as a \u201cviolent\u201d shock \u201cfor anyone,\u201d speaking on France Info news broadcaster after the ruling.<\/p>\n

He said Sarkozy would likely spend a week in the arrival area to be \u201cassessed\u201d then transferred into the so-called \u201carea for vulnerable personalities\u201d for safety reasons.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy will likely be alone in the prison cell, which is equipped with a shower, toilet, small heating element, a fridge and a television, Botton described. He will have access to a special phone he\u2019ll need to pay to use, Botton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 The date for Nicolas Sarkozy\u2019s imprisonment will be set Monday, after the former French president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[162450,162449,52305,30,7144,2000,299,36,4179,7136,6656,44,33182,1411,162451,14618,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-493119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-abdullah-al-senoussi","9":"tag-brice-hortefeux","10":"tag-campaign-finance","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-criminal-punishment","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-legal-proceedings","18":"tag-libya","19":"tag-marine-le-pen","20":"tag-nicolas-sarkozy","21":"tag-paris","22":"tag-pierre-botton","23":"tag-prisons","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115360216844889317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}