PARIS. Former President of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on appeal today in Paris to three years’ imprisonment, one of which to be served in detention, for corruption and influence trafficking in the wiretapping affair. It’s about an unprecedented penalty for a former president. His longtime lawyer Thierry Herzog and former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert received the same sentences.
Sarkozy: “I’m innocent”
Sarkozy, 68, has always declared himself innocent in this scandal in which he was accused and convicted of corruption and influence trafficking. No president of the French Republic had ever suffered such a heavy sentence. The same penalties as the former president for his longtime lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and for the former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
The ban on civil rights
For Sarkozy, the court also pronounced the interdiction from civil rights for 3 years, with the impossibility therefore of running for political office. Also for the lawyer Herzog, prohibition to practice the profession for 3 years. The same sentence had been pronounced by the first instance court.
Corruption allegations
Sarkozy was found guilty of having undertaken, in 2014 through the lawyer Herzog, to support Azibert’s candidacy for a prestigious office in the Principality of Monaco (which the magistrate never obtained, ed.) in exchange for interventions and confidential communications regarding a case then under examination by the Cassation.
“Corruption without money or victims”
«I am a former president of the Republic – Sarkozy said in court in the trial of first instance – I have never corrupted anyone and we should then add that it would be a very strange corruption, without money, not even a penny for anyone, without advantages, no one has had any, and no casualties, since there are no injured persons.’
He will be able to serve his sentence under house arrest
Sarkozy is the first former head of state sentenced to an effective prison sentence, but he will not go to prison, because the court specified in the sentence that he can serve his sentence under house arrest and with an electronic bracelet. The former president – retired from political life since 2016, but still very influential among French conservatives – listened to the decision from the dock of the Paris court, with a tense face and immediately announced, through his lawyers, that he will appeal to the Court of Cassation.