FORMER French president Nicolas Sarkozy faces five years in prison after being found guilty of “criminal conspiracy” in a plot involving $50million in laundered cash from Colonel Gaddafi.
Judges sitting at the Paris Correctional Court ruled that the cash from the late Libyan dictator helped Sarkozy, now 70, with his electioneering.
GettyFormer French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, with his wife Carla Bruni, right, has been found guilty of criminal conspiracy[/caption]
The plot involved cash from Colonel GaddafiGetty Images – Getty
SplashA key witness and relative of George Clooney’s wife Amal died just two days before the verdict[/caption]
It followed a three-month trial that ended in April, and which also involved 11 other defendants, including three of Sarkozy’s former ministers.
The verdict also came just two days after the death of Lebanese arms dealer Zaid Takieddine – a key witness and relative of George Clooney’s wife.
Sarkozy was acquitted of “receiving stolen public funds” and “passive corruption”.
But he still faces up to five years in prison for conspiring with former ministers including ex-chief of staff, Claude Guéant, now 80, who was found guilty of “passive bribery, forgery, and influence peddling”.
Brice Hortefeux, 67 and another senior Sarkozy minister, was found guilty of “criminal conspiracy”.
Prosecutors proved that Sarkozy’s “closest aides” used the money from Muammar Gaddafi to fund his election campaign in 2007.
He briefly bowed his head, but otherwise remained silent, as family members looked ashen-faced.
They included his third wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, 57, who was wearing dark glasses, as well as Sarkozy’s three adult sons from a previous marriage.
Throughtout the trial, Sarkozy had blamed ‘liars and crooks’ for the accusations, while denying that the cash was used to fund his election to head of state in 2007.
“You will never find a single cent from Libya in the campaign,” Sarkozy insisted.
But prosecutors proved he had a “corruption pact” with Gaddafi, who led Libya up until his assassination in 2011.
Evidence included a note from the late Lebanese arms dealer Zaid Takieddine – who is a relative of George Clooney’s wife, Amal Clooney – saying he regularly delivered cash to Sarkozy aides in suitcases.
Takieddine was found dead in Beirut two days ago, at the age of 75,
and was allegedly the principal middleman in the transfer of laundered cash.
Takieddine was a defendant in the trial, but was on the run in Lebanon, which does not extradite its own citizens.
GettySarkoizy’s wife Carla Bruni is accused of a range of corruption offences[/caption]
AFPSarkozy’s former chief-of-staff Claude Gueant, 80, was found guilty of passive bribery, forgery, and influence peddling[/caption]
It was alleged that Sarkozy accepted around $50million from oil-rich Libya in all.
In turn, the North African country wanted to get rid of its pariah status after being held responsible for atrocities such as the Lockerbie Bombing, which saw 270 killed when PanAm Flight 103 was brought down over Scotland in 1988.
Sarkozy had already been definitively convicted of bribing a judge in a separate case, and of illegal campaign funding in another one.
Carla Bruni, is, meanwhile, accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed “Operation Save Sarko” – a complex and illegal plan to try to keep her husband out of jail.
She has been charged with a range of corruption offences, including “witness tampering in an organised gang”, and could be imprisoned for a up to 10 years if found guilty in a separate trial.
Like her husband, Ms Bruni denies any wrongdoing.
Sarkozy has also been forced to wear an electronic tag, while under house arrest, but has never done any cell time.
APFormer French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, and his wife Carla Bruni, right, arrive at the courthouse[/caption]
Jean-François Bohnert, head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said a 10 year investigation led to Sarkozy appearing in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court over the Gaddafi allegations.
“The corruption pact was designed to improve relations with Libya,” said Mr Bohnert.
The PNF alleged that Sarkozy first requested financing during a visit to Libya when he was France’s Interior Minister in 2005.
Within a few months of his election in 2007, Sarkozy invited Gaddafi to Paris for a state visit and praised him as a great friend and “Brother Leader”.
This was while Libya was still being viewed as a pariah state because of the Lockerbie bombing.
The assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy in 1984 was also still causing outrage, especially as no-one was ever brought to justice for it.
Gaddafi’s head of military security and brother-in-law, Abdallah Senoussi, had also been found guilty in absentia of an attack of a French DC-10 plane which left 170 dead.
The financing case was aided by the Mediapart investigative news site, which in 2012 published a document signed by Libya’s intelligence chief which apparently proved the equivalent of £42million had been paid to Sarkozy.
Sarkozy insisted that the contract was a fake, but it was later ruled it can be used as evidence.
It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force jets led the mass bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob.
David Cameron was British Prime Minister at the time, and visited Libya with Sarkozy.
There have been claims that Sarkozy wanted his old friend and ally dead because of his potential to produce incriminating evidence.
Sarkozy has already become France’s first ex-president to be tried for alleged crimes carried out in office.
Sarkozy’s conservative predecessor as President of France, the late Jacques Chirac, received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption, but this related to his time as Mayor of Paris.
The last French head of state to go to a prison cell was Marshall Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.
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