France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy has just been recently convicted of corruption. On March 1st, a Paris court found former president Nicolas Sarkozy who served from 2007 to 2012 convicted for receiving information from a senior magistrate in 2014. The information the former president was getting tipped about was regarding his finances with his campaign. Sarkozy is the first president from France to be sent to prison.
Prosecutors from France first sentenced him to two years in prison with an electronic bracelet at the beginning of the trial along with his two alleged accomplices Thierry Herzog, his lawyer and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert all getting the same sentence. Since 2013, the investigation has bugged the phones belonging to Sarkozy and Herzog.
During the investigation, investigators came across messages promises made between them to Azibert for information about their curiosity of illegal payments from Liliane Bettencourt, the woman who inherited L’Oreal to create a successful 2007 campaign. In these calls, Sarkozy and Herzog told Azibert they would secure a job in Monaco in exchange for other legal information on another legal case.
Evidence proved Sarkozy and Azibert communicated through secret phones and under an alias “Paul Bismuth.” According to CBS News, Sarkozy was accused of taking money from Moammar Gadhafi to help illegally finance his 2007 campaign. He is now facing preliminary charges for passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealing stolen assets from Libya and criminal association.
