Rabat – A French court on Thursday sentenced former president Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison for accepting illegal campaign funds from late Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
The ruling requires Sarkozy to serve prison time regardless of any appeal, with the court also imposing a €100,000 fine.
Sarkozy was convicted of criminal conspiracy but acquitted of other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign financing.
The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy in connection with alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign with funds from the regime of Gaddafi.
The verdict
Judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy, as interior minister and party leader in 2005, “allowed his close collaborators and political supporters over whom he had authority and who acted in his name” to approach Libyan authorities to seek or attempt to obtain financial support.
Two of Sarkozy’s former ministers, Claude Gueant and Brice Hortefeux, were also found guilty of criminal association, though cleared of other charges. Eric Woerth, Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign treasurer, was acquitted.
The court ruled that Sarkozy was guilty of criminal association but did not go as far as prosecutors in declaring him the direct beneficiary of illegal financing.
Origins of the case
The case dates back to 2011, when reports from Libyan media and statements by Gaddafi himself claimed millions of euros had been secretly funneled into Sarkozy’s campaign.
The following year, investigative outlet Mediapart published a purported Libyan intelligence memo referencing a €50 million funding agreement, which Sarkozy denounced as a forgery.
Evidence presented in court included testimony from seven former Libyan officials, trips by Gueant and Hortefeux to Libya, suspicious financial transfers, and the notebooks of former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, who was found drowned in the Danube in 2012.
Prosecutors alleged these elements supported the existence of a “corruption pact” between Sarkozy and Gaddafi.
Sarkozy has consistently denied wrongdoing, calling the proceedings politically motivated.
Sarkozy’s legal troubles
The latest ruling adds to a string of legal battles facing the former French leader since leaving office in 2012.
He has previously been convicted of corruption and influence-peddling, serving part of a one-year sentence under electronic monitoring, and was separately sentenced in the “Bygmalion affair” for illegal campaign financing.
Sarkozy has also lost France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honour, following earlier convictions. Despite these setbacks, he continues to wield influence within the country’s right-wing politics and maintains regular contact with current French President Emmanuel Macron.
Gaddafi’s regime collapsed in 2011 during the Arab Spring, when NATO forces, including France under Sarkozy, intervened militarily to enforce a no-fly zone.
The irony of Sarkozy’s alleged ties to Gaddafi has been central to the case, showing what prosecutors have described as a transactional relationship between Paris and Tripoli.
