May 14, 7:38 AM
French Prosecutors Demand Seven Years in Prison for Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy
The 71-year-old insists not a single cent from Libya ever reached his campaign coffers. The court may disagree.
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's former president, is staring at a possible seven-year prison sentence. Again. In an ongoing appeals trial over alleged Libyan campaign financing, French prosecutors have demanded exactly that: seven years behind bars plus a €300,000 fine. It is the same sentence they requested in the first instance, and it is not getting any softer with repetition.
The Paris prosecutor's office accuses the 71-year-old of forming a criminal conspiracy, bribery, illegal campaign financing, and benefiting from the embezzlement of public funds. The case revolves around allegations that Sarkozy's successful 2007 presidential bid received illicit funding from the regime of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy, for his part, has once again pleaded not guilty. He told the court that not a single cent from Libya went into his campaign and that he was never under the influence of Gaddafi. His lawyers have called for an acquittal.
The so-called Libya affair is widely considered the most explosive of the multiple legal cases against Sarkozy. In the first-instance verdict, the court found no direct evidence that money from Gaddafi's regime actually flowed into the 2007 campaign. However, the court did rule that Sarkozy and his close allies had tried to obtain that money. He was convicted of membership in a criminal conspiracy and sentenced to five years in prison, spending several weeks behind bars. That made him the most severely punished former French head of state in recent history.
Now, in the appeals process, the prosecution is asking for an even longer sentence than the one he originally received. The appeals trial is scheduled to run until the end of May.
Sarkozy is not alone in the dock. Ten other defendants are standing trial alongside him, including former ministers Claude Guéant, Éric Woerth, and Brice Hortefeux. Whether the court will follow the prosecution's demand remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: for a man who once ran France, the legal noose is not loosening.
Written by Christiane Hofreiter
