Nicolas Sarkozy is due to appear before the Paris appeals court to face a new trial over accusations that he conspired to receive illegal election campaign financing from the regime of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The former right-wing French president, who was in office from 2007 to 2012, denies any wrongdoing.
Last year, Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy over the alleged scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the Gaddafi regime. He became the first former head of an EU country to serve prison time and the first post-war French leader to go behind bars.
After 20 days in a Paris jail, which he described as “grueling” and a “nightmare,” Sarkozy was released from prison in November, pending his appeal, and published a book about his time in prison. He was held in solitary confinement for his own safety, in a single cell of about 9 square meters with its own shower and toilet.
At last year’s trial, state prosecutors accused Sarkozy of making a deal, as interior minister in 2005, with Gaddafi to obtain campaign financing for his successful 2007 presidential bid in exchange for supporting the then-isolated Libyan government on the international stage.
Last year, Sarkozy was found guilty of one count of criminal conspiracy over the scheme to obtain electoral funds from Libya. He was acquitted of three other charges of corruption, embezzlement of Libyan public funds and illegal financing of electoral campaigns.
In the new appeal trial that begins Monday, Sarkozy will be retried on all four charges after he appealed against his conviction and the state prosecutor appealed against the acquittals. If convicted, Sarkozy, 71, faces up to 10 years in prison.
In the first trial last year, the court heard that in exchange for money for Sarkozy’s campaign, the Libyan regime requested diplomatic, legal and commercial favors, and it was understood that Sarkozy would rehabilitate Gaddafi’s international image. The autocratic Libyan leader, whose 41-year rule was marked by human rights abuses, had been isolated internationally for his regime’s connection to terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.
Prosecutors accused members of Sarkozy’s entourage of meeting with members of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya in 2005.
Shortly after assuming the presidency in 2007, Sarkozy invited the Libyan leader on a long state visit to Paris during which he set up his Bedouin tent in the gardens near the Elysée Palace.
In 2011, Sarkozy put France at the forefront of NATO-led airstrikes against Gaddafi’s troops that helped rebel fighters topple his regime. Gaddafi was captured and killed in October 2011.
A total of 10 people face a new trial on appeal in the case.
