Paris court upholds Sarkozy’s sentence to one year in prison

The Paris Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a case of corruption and trading in influence, transmits BFMTV.

According to Sarkozy’s lawyer Me Jacqueline Laffon, the former president’s side plans to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal in Cassation. It is specified that they have five days to file a complaint. As a rule, the Court of Cassation will consider the appeal within a year, during which period Sarkozy will not be required to wear an electronic bracelet.

March 1, 2021 court in Paris acknowledged Sarkozy was convicted of corruption and influence peddling in a wiretapping case and sentenced him to one year in prison and two years of probation. Now the Court of Appeal has approved the decision, according to which Sarkozy will serve one year of punishment not in prison, but at home – with an electronic bracelet.

Sarkozy was found guilty of favoring former Constitutional Court judge Gilbert Aziber in obtaining a position in Monaco in exchange for information about an investigation into the illegal receipt of funds for his 2007 presidential campaign. The lawyer of the former President Thierry Herzog. Aziber and Erzog were sentenced to similar terms.

In September 2021, Sarkozy also sentenced to the year of restriction of freedom in the so-called “Bygmalion case” on illegal financing of an election campaign in 2012 – the actual excess of the legal spending threshold of 22.5 million euros.

Sarkozy was the leader of France from 2007 to 2012. He became the second president in the history of the country to be convicted, and the first to receive a real term. In 2011, former French President Jacques Chirac was given a two-year suspended sentence in connection with the creation of fictitious jobs in the office of the mayor’s office of Paris in 1990-1995, when he was mayor of Paris.