The French Justice ratified this Wednesday the sentence to three years in prison against former President Nicolás Sarkozy in the framework of a case of corruption and influence peddling in a wiretapping plot, after the president appealed the sentence imposed in the first instance.
For Sarkozy, two of the three years of the sentence are suspended, for having tried to take advantage of his status as former head of state to obtain judicial benefits in another case open against him. The verdict also establishes that the former president may serve the sentence under house arrest and with an electronic bracelet, and not behind bars, but it also imposes three years of deprivation of his civil rights, for which reason he will not be able to run for elected office.
His lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, announced that they will appeal to the Supreme Court and that they will exhaust all legal avenues until their client’s innocence is proven.which he named the victim of an injustice for a penalty that he considered a moral judgment without legal support. The country’s highest court, who on five occasions rejected Sarkozy’s defense arguments, It will be pronounced again in about a year.
Converted in March 2021 into the first French president to be sentenced to prison For this case, Sarkozy accumulates another sentence of one year in prison, pronounced in November 2021 for the illegal financing of his 2012 Elysee campaign.