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Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has faced French courts after being accused of receiving illegal funds from the then-regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
Twelve other people, including three former ministers in Sarkozy’s government (Brice Ortfe, Claude Guedt and Eric Wert) and former officials from Gaddafi’s regime, are also accused in the same case. The trial, which is being held in Sarkozy’s presence, is expected to end next April.
The 69-year-old former French president is accused in particular of corruption, embezzlement of public funds, illegal financing of his election campaign and gang formation, while he faces a 10-year prison sentence, the loss of his political rights and a financial fine.
Sarkozy himself has described the entire case as a “myth”, while his environment portrays him as “fighter” and “determined” to prove his innocence.
According to the indictment, in 2005 – when Sarkozy was a minister in Jacques Chirac’s government – during an official visit to Libya he met with Gaddafi, who was then trying to emerge from the regime of international diplomatic isolation, and promised him that France would help him if he managed to win the 2007 presidential elections. Sarkozy asked Gaddafi to finance his election campaign with an amount currently estimated to be around 50 million euros.
The existence of a secret agreement between Sarkozy and Gaddafi was confirmed from time to time by both Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, and other Libyan officials. The French justice system began to deal with this issue in 2012, immediately after the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s term as president of the French Republic and about a year after the death of Gaddafi, who was assassinated in 2011.
In the 555-page indictment, the French judicial authorities refer in detail to the enormous difficulties they have encountered in investigating the case, which is considered extremely complex and with many “gray areas”.
This is the fifth time that Sarkozy has faced French justice since the end of his term in 2012 as president of the Republic, and he is the only president of France to have been definitively convicted in a corruption case.
Redaksia
