Sarkozy to face trial today over Libya pact
- 06 Jan 2025
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, already convicted twice in separate cases since leaving office, on Monday goes on trial charged with accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with the late Libyan ruler Muammar Qadhafi.
The career of Sarkozy has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election.
But he remains an influential figure for many on the right and is also known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.
Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination. He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution. There was no Libyan financing of the campaign,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain.
Among 12 others facing trial over the alleged Libyan financing are heavyweights such as Sarkozy’s former right-hand man, Claude Gueant, his then-head of campaign financing, Eric Woerth, and former minister Brice Hortefeux.
“Claude Gueant will demonstrate that after more than ten years of investigation, none of the offences he is accused of have been proven,” said his lawyer Philippe Bouchez El Ghozi, denouncing the cases as amounting to “assertions, hypotheses and other approximations.”
The fiercely ambitious and energetic politician, 69, who is married to the model and singer Carla Bruni and while in power from 2007-2012 liked to be known as the “hyper-president,” has been convicted in two cases, charged in another and is being investigated in connection with two more.
Sarkozy will be in the dock at the Paris court barely half a month after France’s top appeals court on Dec.18 rejected his appeal against a one year prison sentence for influence peddling, which he is to serve by wearing an electronic bracelet rather than in jail.
The latest trial is the result of a decade of investigations into accusations that Sarkozy accepted illegal campaign financing -- reportedly amounting to some 50 million euros -- from Qadhafi to help his victorious 2007 election campaign.
Agence France-Presse