Ex-French President Sarkozy Slapped With 5-Year Prison Term Over Gaddafi Funding Case

(Photo by Eliot Blondet/Abaca/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison after a Paris court found him guilty of criminal conspiracy linked to alleged Libyan funding of his 2007 election campaign.

The 70-year-old, who led France between 2007 and 2012, was acquitted on charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, and concealment of embezzled public funds, but judges ruled that Sarkozy permitted close allies to approach Muammar Gaddafi’s regime “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya for the purpose of securing campaign financing.”

In a break with convention, the court declared the sentence would stand even if appealed, though Sarkozy has not yet been sent to prison.

He has denounced the case as politically driven, calling it a “plot” mounted by the “Gaddafi clan” and other “liars and crooks.”

After the sentencing, he told gathered press: “If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high.”

He added: “Those who hate me so much think they can humiliate me. What they have humiliated today is France, the image of France.”

Despite his legal troubles, Sarkozy has remained an influential figure on the French right.