Nicolas Sarkozy given five-year prison sentence after Libya trial

 Former French president found guilty of criminal conspiracy after being accused of pact with Gaddafi regime  

 

 

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said he would “sleep in jail but with my head held high” after receiving a five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy – the first time a former head of state has been sent to prison in modern French history.

The verdict and sentencing followed a trial in which he and his aides were accused of making a corruption pact with the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to receive funding for the 2007 French presidential election campaign. 

 

 

In a surprise ruling, the head judge, Nathalie Gavarino, handed down a special form of sentence that means Sarkozy, 70, will have to serve a prison term even if he appeals. She justified the conviction and sentencing on the grounds the offences were of “exceptional gravity” and “likely to undermine citizens’ trust.”

The start of Sarkozy’s sentence will be set at a later date, with prosecutors given a month to inform him when he should go to prison. The judge also ordered Sarkozy, France’s rightwing president from 2007 to 2012, to pay a €100,000 (£87,000) fine. 

 

 

Sarkozy’s prison sentence was harsher than many had expected. As he exited the courtroom, he expressed his anger in typically pugnacious style, telling reporters: “What happened today … is of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system.”

He added: “If they absolutely want me to sleep in jail, I will sleep in jail, but with my head held high.”

Sarkozy, who had denied all wrongdoing in court, said he would launch an appeal against the verdict, reiterating: “I am innocent; this justice is a scandal.” 

 

 

“Those that hate me this much think they will humiliate me,” said Sarkozy. “But what they have humiliated today is France, the image of France.”

The former president was found guilty of criminal conspiracy but acquitted of corruption, misuse of Libyan public funds and illegal election campaign funding.

As he walked out of the court with his wife, the singer and former model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, TV cameras showed her grabbing the red cover of the microphone of investigative reporting website Mediapart, which first started reporting on the Libya allegations, and apparently throwing it on the ground.

She later posted on Instagram: “Love is the answer” with the hashtag #Hatewillnotwin. 

 

 

Prosecutors had told the court that Sarkozy and his aides devised a “corruption pact” with Gaddafi and the Libyan regime in 2005 to illegally fund Sarkozy’s victorious presidential election campaign two years later.

The court had heard that in return for the money, the Libyan regime requested diplomatic, legal and business favours and it was understood that Sarkozy would rehabilitate Gaddafi’s international image. The autocratic Libyan leader, whose brutal 41-year rule was marked by human rights abuses, had been isolated internationally over his regime’s connection to terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in December 1988.

Prosecutors accused members of Sarkozy’s entourage of meeting members of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya in 2005, when Sarkozy was interior minister. Soon after becoming president in 2007, Sarkozy then invited the Libyan leader for a lengthy state visit to Paris during which he set up his Bedouin tent in gardens near the Élysée 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 by rebels in October 2011 and killed.

The allegations of a secret campaign funding pact made this the biggest corruption trial faced by Sarkozy. He has already been convicted in two separate cases and stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honour. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/nicolas-sarkozy-found-guilty-of-criminal-conspiracy-in-libya-trial