The former head of state had been sentenced to the same sentence at first instance. Nicolas Sarkozy, also deprived of his civic rights for a period of three years, is appealing in cassation.
The decision has fallen. Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on appeal to three years’ imprisonment, including one year, for corruption and influence peddling, Wednesday, May 17. The former head of state had been sentenced to the same sentence at first instance, an unprecedented sanction for a former president . The Paris Court of Appeal specified that the sentence would take place at home, under an electronic bracelet. Nicolas Sarkozy is also deprived of his civic rights for a period of three years, which makes him ineligible. His lawyers immediately announced that he was going to appeal in cassation.
The two co-defendants of the ex-president, his historic lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert, were sentenced to the same sentence. Criminal lawyer Thierry Herzog is also banned from practicing his profession for three years.
A decision that goes beyond the requisitions
The Court of Appeal went beyond the requisitions of the General Prosecutor’s Office during the appeal trial in December 2022. Three years in prison fully suspended were required against the former head of state. The president of the court of appeal notably justified the decision rendered by the status of the three defendants, all three legal professionals. “Mr. Herzog and Sarkozy are lawyers, Mr. Azibert is a specialist in criminal procedure. None of the three can claim ignorance of the offenses committed”said Sophie Clément.
“Messrs. Herzog and Sarkozy are lawyers, Mr. Azibert is a specialist in criminal procedure. None of the three can claim ignorance of the offenses committed”, continues the president in the reading of the decision.
— Charlotte Piret (@ChPiret) May 17, 2023
The case of suspected Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign is indirectly at the origin of the “wiretapping” affair, also called “Bismuth”. At the end of 2013, the investigating judges in charge of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan corruption decided to “connect” the two lines of Nicolas Sarkozy. They then discover the existence of a third, unofficial line.
Purchased on January 11, 2014 under the identity of “Paul Bismuth”, it is dedicated to exchanges between the former president and his lawyer and longtime friend, Thierry Herzog.
Telephone conversations at the heart of the case
Their telephone conversations, broadcast for the first time during the second trial in December, constitute the heart of the case and the basis of the accusation.
For the public prosecutor, these wiretappings take shape in a corruption pact forged with Gilbert Azibert, then general counsel at the Court of Cassation, accused of having worked behind the scenes to weigh in on an appeal brought by Nicolas Sarkozy in the Bettencourt affair, in exchange for a “boost” for an honorary position in Monaco.