The possible indictment concerns the sudden retraction of Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser of the former head of state, in a case over alleged illegal campaign financing from late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi. Takieddine, who died in late September, had claimed several times that he helped deliver up to €5 million in cash from Kadhafi to Sarkozy and the former president's chief of staff in 2006 and 2007.
The former conservative president, 70, was jailed on October 21 after a court found him guilty in September of criminal conspiracy over efforts by close aides to procure funds for his 2007 presidential bid from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was acquitted of all other charges, including corruption and receiving illegal campaign financing. Sarkozy's prison sentence had been enforced swiftly because of the "extraordinary seriousness" of the crime, judge Nathalie Gavarino told the court.
A lower court in September found the right-winger -- who was head of state from 2007 to 2012 -- guilty of seeking to acquire funding from Moamer Kadhafi's Libya for the campaign that saw him elected, and sentenced him to five years behind bars. The 70-year-old entered jail on October 21st, becoming the first former head of an EU state to be incarcerated, and his lawyers immediately sought his release.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will serve jail time at a Paris prison from October 21st, informed sources told AFP on Monday, after a court last month sentenced him to five years behind bars for criminal conspiracy. The 70-year-old, who will be the first French postwar leader and the first former head of a European Union country to go to jail, will serve time at the La Sante prison in Paris, informed sources told AFP.
French authorities said Friday they have launched two investigations into threats targeting the presiding judge in the conspiracy trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was jailed for five years. The magistrates' union said the judge, Nathalie Gavarino, had received death threats and messages threatening her with "serious violence" in the wake of Thursday's verdict. A special anti-online hate task force will lead the investigations.
On the morning of May 13, 1993, a man dressed in black and rigged with explosives entered a daycare center in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris, and took 20 children and their teacher hostage. In exchange for their release, the kidnapper demanded 100 million francs (about $17 million). But the town's mayor, a young and ambitious politician named Nicolas Sarkozy, decided to ignore the police's advice and go in to negotiate with the abductor.
When a Paris court handed Nicolas Sarkozy a five-year prison sentence on Thursday for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to get election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi it was a historic moment for modern France. The rightwing Sarkozy, who served as president between 2007 and 2012, was known in office not just for his hard line on immigration and national identity but for championing harsher sentencing for delinquents.
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a trial in which he and aides were accused of making an alleged corruption pact with the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to receive funding for the 2007 French presidential election campaign. But Sarkozy was was acquitted of three other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign financing.
