Former president Nicolas Sarkozy is due back in court on Monday to defend himself against charges of seeking to finance his 2007 election in Libya, which last year saw him become France’s first modern head of state to go to prison.
A lower court found the far-right politician, who was head of state from 2007 to 2012, guilty in September of trying to fund his campaign to get elected by Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.
Sarkozy, who has denied any wrongdoing, entered a Paris prison in October, serving 20 days before being released.
A retrial at the Paris appeals court, which runs until June 3, means the 71-year-old is once again presumed innocent.
Sarkozy has faced legal problems since leaving office and has already received two critical convictions in other cases.
In one, he wore an electronic ankle tag for several months, until it was removed in May last year, in an attempt to win favor from a judge.
Read moreFormer President Sarkozy’s 20-day prison routine: ‘Like the Count of Monte Cristo’?
And in another, he will have to serve more time for illegal financing of his failed 2012 re-election bid.
In the so-called “Libya case”, he has pleaded for a five-year prison sentence.
In September a lower court indicted Sarkozy for criminal conspiracy over what he said was a scheme to expropriate Libyan funds for his 2007 presidential run. But it did not conclude that Sarkozy received or used campaign funds.
His legal team immediately appealed, but a lower court ordered him behind bars, citing the “extraordinary gravity” of the sentence.
Sarkozy entered prison on October 21, becoming the first former head of state of the European Union to be imprisoned.
Read moreSarkozy faces possible impeachment over evidence tampering in the Libya funding case
Prison Diaries
In the initial trial, prosecutors argued Sarkozy’s aides, acting in his name, colluded with Gaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Investigators believe Gaddafi was promised in return to help restore his international image after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet that killed hundreds of passengers in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and Niger in 1989.
Members of Sarkozy’s circle did not want to comment ahead of the retrial.
Sarkozy published a hastily written book about his time in prison, entitled “Diary of a Prisoner”, which had supporters queuing around the block in Paris to buy it when it came out in December.
In the 216-page book, he describes his mundane struggles with noise and low-quality food.
But he has hinted at a possible alliance to “rebuild strength” between the traditional right-wing Republican Party, which he once led, and the country’s main right-wing party.
He and his wife, singer and model Carla Bruni, face another possible trial on charges that they tried to bribe a key prosecution witness in a Libyan campaign finance case with the help of a paparazzi boss. He denies wrongdoing.
(With FRANCE 24 AFP)
(tags to translate)Europe
