▲ Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (69), who was indicted on charges including attempting to bribe a judge, has been found guilty in the final trial, following the first and second instances.
According to AFP, AP, and Reuters, on the 19th (local time), France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, upheld the guilty verdict on charges of corruption and abuse of power against Sarkozy.
The sentence imposed in the first and second instances—three years in prison with a two-year suspension—was also confirmed.
Instead of imprisonment, the decision to place him under house arrest with an electronic bracelet for a year and bar him from holding public office for three years was maintained.
Sarkozy, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, was accused of promising a significant position to a judge in exchange for information regarding an investigation into his illegal political funding in 2014.
At that time, the judicial authorities were investigating indications that Sarkozy had received a large sum of illegal political funds from Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress of the French cosmetics company L’Oréal, ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
Sarkozy, who has consistently denied the charges, expressed his intention through social media platform X to challenge the verdict at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), stating, “I want to reiterate that I am clearly innocent.”
In addition to this trial, Sarkozy is also facing various other criminal trials.
He has also been found guilty in the first and second instances for spending nearly double the legal limit on his presidential campaign and submitting false receipts.
AFP reported that Sarkozy is the first former French president to receive a sentence that includes wearing an electronic bracelet, as well as the first not to receive a suspended sentence for punishment like house arrest.
His predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was indicted for misappropriating public funds during his time as mayor of Paris and received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011.
Meanwhile, Sarkozy was also indicted for allegedly receiving illicit funds from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi (who died in 2011) before the 2007 presidential election.
This trial is set to begin next year, and if found guilty, Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison.
(Photo = Getty Images Korea)