Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday became the first former head of an EU state to be jailed, proclaiming his innocence as he entered a Paris prison.
France’s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012 was last month found guilty of seeking to acquire funding from former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi for the campaign that saw him elected.
Sarkozy, 70, left his home and after a short drive flanked by police on motorbikes, entered La Sante prison in the French capital.
Photo: Reuters
“Welcome Sarkozy,” “Sarkozy’s here,” convicts were heard shouting from their cells.
In a defiant message posted on social media as he was being transferred, Sarkozy denied any wrongdoing.
“It is not a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, but an innocent man,” he wrote on X.
“I have no doubt. The truth will prevail,” he added.
Sarkozy was on Sept. 25 handed a five-year jail term for criminal conspiracy over a plan for Qaddafi to fund his electoral campaign.
After the verdict, Sarkozy had said he would “sleep in prison — but with my head held high.”
Dozens of supporters and family members had stood outside the former president’s home from early yesterday, some holding up framed portraits of him.
“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” they shouted as he left his home, holding hands with his wife, singer Carla Bruni.
Earlier they had sung the French national anthem, as neighbors looked on from their balconies.
“This is truly a sad day for France and for democracy,” said Flora Amanou, 41.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, said a request had been immediately filed for Sarkozy’s release.
The Paris appeals court in theory has two months to decide whether to free him pending an appeals trial, but the delay is usually shorter.
Sarkozy is the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II.
He told Le Figaro newspaper he would be taking with him a biography of Jesus and a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Sarkozy is likely to be held in a 9m2 cell in the prison’s solitary confinement wing to avoid contact with other prisoners, prison staff said.
In solitary confinement, inmates are allowed out of their cells for one walk a day, alone, in a small yard. Sarkozy will also be allowed visits three times a week.
Sarkozy has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing his re-election bid in 2012.
He has also been convicted in two other cases.
In one, he served a sentence for graft — over seeking to secure favors from a judge — under house arrest while wearing an electronic ankle tag, which was removed after several months in May.
In another, France’s top court is to rule next month in a case in which he is accused of illegal campaign financing in 2012.
In the so-called “Libyan case,” prosecutors said his aides, acting in Sarkozy’s name, struck a deal with Qaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Investigators believe that in return, Qaddafi was promised help to restore his international image after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.
The court convicted him of criminal conspiracy over the plan, but it did not conclude that Sarkozy received or used the funds for his campaign.
It acquitted him on charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.
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