The former President of the Republic, 68, will be present for the delivery of the decision scheduled from 9 a.m., according to concordant sources.
Two years after an unprecedented conviction for a former head of state, the Paris Court of Appeal is ruling this Wednesday morning in the so-called “Bismuth” case, on the fate of Nicolas Sarkozy, his historic lawyer and a former high magistrate.
At first instance, on March 1, 2021, the former tenant of the Élysée (2007-2012) was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, including one year firm, for corruption and influence peddling. This unprecedented sanction aroused the ire of the Sarkozy camp, which shouted haro on the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), the latter denying himself of “doing politics”.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who never ceased to proclaim his innocence, immediately appealed: on the first day of this new trial, December 5, 2022, he claimed to have come “to defend his flouted honor” and ensured that he had ” never corrupt anyone”.
Several cases
At the end of the proceedings, contrary to the first instance, the prosecution did not request a prison sentence against him. While speaking of a case “of unprecedented gravity during the Fifth Republic”, the general prosecutor’s office asked for three years in prison fully suspended for the three defendants.
The public prosecutor has also demanded a five-year ban on civil rights for Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as a ban on practicing the profession of lawyer during the same period for Me Herzog, 67.
This decision is expected as the former right-wing strongman will be retried on appeal in the fall in the “Bygmalion” case, and he is under threat of a resounding third trial: the PNF has requested his dismissal on Thursday in the case of suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign.
This legal file, which also implicates three former ministers of Nicolas Sarkozy, is indirectly at the origin of the listening affair.
“Paul Bismuth”
At the end of 2013, the investigating judges in charge of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan corruption decided to “connect” the two lines of Nicolas Sarkozy. They then discover the existence of a third, unofficial line.
Bought on January 11, 2014 under the identity of “Paul Bismuth” – a high school acquaintance of Me Herzog – it is dedicated to exchanges between the former president and his lawyer and longtime friend, Thierry Herzog. Their sometimes flowery telephone conversations, broadcast for the first time during the second trial in December, are at the heart of the case.
For the prosecution, these wiretaps reveal a corruption pact made with Gilbert Azibert, then general counsel at the Court of Cassation, the highest court of the French judicial order.
The latter is accused of having worked behind the scenes to influence an appeal filed by Nicolas Sarkozy in the Bettencourt affair, in exchange for a “boost” for an honorary position in Monaco.
From the outset, the lawyers for the defendants have claimed that these wiretaps are illegal, because they believe they undermine the secrecy of exchanges between a lawyer and his client. Critics hitherto dismissed by the judges.
