Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is arriving at the Paris Courthouse to hear the final ruling on the 1st (local time). AFP=Yonhap News
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 66, was sentenced to imprisonment on charges of buying a judge on the 1st (local time).
According to AFP, Reuters, and AP, a French court sentenced former President Sarkozy, who was accused of buying a judge, to three years in prison, including two years probation.
This is the first case of a former president convicted of corruption since 1958, when the Fifth Republic was established in France. However, in France, prisoners are usually detained for two or more years in prison, but the courts are highly likely to be put on an electronic tag for a period of one year in prison and face house arrest, so Sarkozy is unlikely to enter prison, the AFP said. Former President Sarkozy has denied the allegations and is expected to appeal.
Former President Sarkozy, who took office from 2007 to 2012, is accused of promising a job after retirement from Monaco in exchange for providing internal secrets related to his investigation of illegal political funds to the then Supreme Justice Gilber Agiber in 2014.
French judicial authorities were investigating the situation in which former President Sarkozy was handed over a large amount of illegal political money to Lillian Betancourt, the heiress of French cosmetics company L’Oreal, ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
Former President Sarkozy was found not guilty of receiving illegal political funding from Betancourt. Agiber also did not get the position of judge in Monaco.
However, the prosecution saw that there was some kind of consultation between Judge Aziber, while former President Sarkozy communicated with his lawyer Thierry Erzog through his cell phone.
Former President Sarkozy is also under investigation for receiving back money from Libyan dictator Gaddafi ahead of the 2007 presidential election, and for illegally raising presidential funding by forging receipts in the 2012 presidential election.
He tried for re-election in 2012, but was defeated by Socialist candidate Francois Hollande. He challenged himself in the 2017 presidential election, but was eliminated from the Republican primary.
Reporter Han Young-hye [email protected]
