Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by a Paris court Monday and was sentenced to one year in prison with a two-year suspended sentence.
Sarkozy served as president from 2007 to 2012 and was convicted over attempts to illegally obtain information from a senior magistrate regarding a lawsuit involving the former leader.
The 66-year-old politician was told he would be entitled to request being detained in-home with an electronic bracelet.
FRENCH COURT FINDS ITS GOVERNMENT GUILTY OF VIOLATING PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD
Last year, Sarkozy denied any allegations against him during a 10-day trial over his charges.
Sarkozy’s corruption trial was focused on a phone call made between him and one of his co-defendants, lawyer Thierry Herzog. Investigative judges already had an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.
In 2014, investigators uncovered that the former president and Herzog were communicating through secret phones registered to the alias “Paul Bismuth.”
Prosecutors wiretapped the conversation and were led to suspect Sarkozy and Herzog of attempting to grant now-retired magistrate Gilbert Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about another legal battle involving Sarkozy.
Sarkozy stands as the first former president in France’s modern history to have gone to trial for corruption. He will endure an additional trial later this month with 13 others, facing charges of illegal financing his 2012 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy’s conservative party is suspected by prosecutors of spending 42.8 million euros ($50.7 million) to finance his campaign, reportedly nearly twice the authorized spending amount.
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A separate investigation opened accuses the former president of taking millions from the late-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to finance his 2007 campaign. He was detained by police over the matter in 2018.
