Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Monday found guilty of corruption and subsequently handed a three-year prison sentence after a court in Paris convicted him for trying to illegally influence a judge during his time in office as president,
However, to the disappointment of many, the sentence includes two years suspended, which means it is unlikely Sarkozy will physically go to prison throughout his jail term.
The verdict is the latest twist in the controversial political career of the 66-year-old who ruled France from 2007 to 2012 and who still commands a towering admiration from many citizens.
The conviction is likely to undermine any attempted comeback to frontline politics, an ambition he has denied, but which has been promoted by many supporters ahead of 2022 presidential elections.
Only one other French president, Sarkozy’s political mentor Jacques Chirac, was put on trial after leaving office, but he was excused from having to attend his 2011 corruption trial because of ill health.
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Chirac received a two-year suspended sentence over the creation of ghost jobs at the Paris city hall to fund his party when he was mayor.
The verdict on Monday related to a case of influence peddling and corruption, one of at least four separate investigations into the former leader, who married former supermodel and singer Carla Bruni while in office.
Sarkozy was accused of offering to help a judge obtain a senior job in Monaco in exchange for putting pressure on an inquiry into his campaign finances.
The former president told the court during the trial he had “never committed the slightest act of corruption”.
Prosecutors called for him to be jailed for four years and serve a minimum of two, and asked for the same punishment for his co-defendants — lawyer Thierry Herzog and the judge Gilbert Azibert.
The graft and influence-peddling charges — among several legal cases against him — carry a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of one million euros ($1.2 million).
Prosecutors say Sarkozy and Herzog tried to bribe judge Azibert over an inquiry into claims the former leader had received illicit payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt during his successful 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy’s lawyer Jacqueline Laffont lashed out at the flaws and “emptiness” of the prosecutor’s accusations, with the defense also claiming that the tapped conversations had been just “chats between friends”.
Azibert, who was a senior adviser at France’s highest appeals court at the time, never got the job in Monaco.
Sarkozy’s lawyers argued this pointed to the absence of corruption, but prosecutors said French law makes no distinction between a successful corruption attempt and a failed one.
Sarkozy was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in the Bettencourt affair but still faces a raft of other legal woes.
Sarkozy’s long-running legal travails helped sink his comeback bid for the 2017 presidential vote, but he has surfed on a wave of popularity since announcing his retirement from politics in 2018.
Lines of fans queued over last summer to have him sign his latest memoir, “The Time of Storms”, which topped best-seller lists for weeks.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK