A blow to the court. Former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to this firm five years in prison this Thursday to the “criminal association” as part of the release suspicions of his campaign. His conviction is accompanied by a deposit order with a delayed effect. Specifically, this means that the former president will be imprisoned in the coming weeks, the first for a former head of state.
“Hate definitely has no limits. I will assume my responsibilities. I will defeat the summons of justice. If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison but my high head. I am innocent,” the former head of state launched, obviously stunned by the decision of justice.
“What happened today, in this Chamber of the Criminal Court is extremely serious for the rule of law, the confidence that can be had for justice,” he said.
“This injustice is a scandal”
Nicolas Sarkozy announced as a result of his sentence to appeal and promised to “fight until his last breath to proclaim my innocence.” “This injustice is a scandal,” said the former president.
But the organization of a second trial will not suspect the prison and its application. However, Nicolas Sarkozy can ask for benefiting from probation, with 70 years, but once he is imprisoned.
The former head of state was also sentenced to a fine of 100,000 euros, as well as the prohibition of occupying a public service and inelegability, all for a period of five years, completely excluding political life. The former mayor of Neuilly had never left the right, despite his lack of mandate and his failure in the premiums of the Republicans in 2016.
Facts of “exceptional gravity”
To justify his decision, the president of the Court of Nathalie Gavarino emphasized that the alleged facts were “an exceptional gravity”, “that citizens are probably confident.”
Justice considered significantly that “as minister, president of the UMP” (the old name of the note of the LR editor), Nicolas Sarkozy had “left his close collaborators and political support, in which he had authority, acting in his name.” THE OBJECTIVE: Ask the LIBIAS authorities “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya in order to obtain funds for the campaign” since 2007.
The magistrate partly followed the very severe requests required by the National Financial Prosecutor (PNF) office last March.
Call “love”
At that time, at the end of a trial for the river, the PNF had requested 7 years in prison, 300,000 euros fine and 5 years of inelegability, but without a court order, that is to say without an immediate imprisonment against Nicolas Sarkozy.
For three days, the magistrates had described the former president as the “true decisions creator, the true sponsor” of a “inconceivable, unaudent, indecent” corruption pact with former Libyan dictator Mummar Gaddafi. They had still denounced a “frantic search for funds” to satisfy a “devouring political ambition.”
On the side of the relatives of Nicolas Sarkozy, time is for combativeness. His wife Carla Bruni judged that “love was the answer.” The president of the deputies RN Marine Le Pen, herself under the coup of a judgment of inelegability for which she appealed, spoke of “great danger” for democracy.
Source: BFM TV
