An appeals court has upheld the conviction of France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy for bribery and trading in influence. In its judgment today, the court in Paris upheld the conviction of the 68-year-old in the first instance to three years in prison, two of which were suspended.
Sarkozy is allowed to serve the one-year prison sentence at home under electronic surveillance. Whether it will come to that, however, remains to be seen. The former head of state can appeal the decision.
Specifically, the case is about the fact that the former conservative president is said to have tried in 2014 through his long-time lawyer Thierry Herzog to obtain investigative secrets from the lawyer Gilbert Azibert in another affair.
In return, Azibert was offered assistance in applying for a post in Monaco. In essence, this behavior endangered the independence of the judiciary, the prosecution argued. Herzog and Azibert were also sentenced to three years in prison each, two of them on probation. The Court of Appeal upheld those penalties today.
As the presiding judge Sophie Clement said in the verdict, the crimes committed by Sarkozy are all the more serious because they were committed by a former president.
