France’s Former President Sarkozy Convicted in Libya Campaign Funding Trial

A Paris court on Thursday convicted former French president Nicolas Sarkozy of criminal conspiracy in connection with alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, though he was acquitted of corruption and illegal campaign funding charges.

The ruling marks the latest in a series of legal troubles for the 70-year-old right-wing leader, who denies all wrongdoing. Sarkozy, president from 2007 to 2012, has already been convicted in two separate cases and stripped of France’s highest national honour.

Delivering the verdict, Judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy, then a minister and party leader, had “allowed his close collaborators and political supporters over whom he had authority and who acted in his name” to approach Libyan authorities “in order to obtain or attempt to obtain financial support.”

However, the court stopped short of concluding that Sarkozy personally benefited from the alleged illicit funds. He was acquitted of charges relating to embezzlement of Libyan public money, passive corruption, and illegal campaign financing.

Prosecutors had requested a seven-year prison sentence. Sentencing will be announced later in the hearing. Sarkozy was present in court with his wife, model and musician Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Two of his closest allies were also convicted. Claude Gueant, his longtime aide, was found guilty of passive corruption and falsification, while former minister Brice Hortefeux was convicted of criminal conspiracy. By contrast, Eric Woerth, treasurer of Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign, was acquitted.

The verdict came just two days after the death in Beirut of Ziad Takieddine, a Franco-Lebanese businessman and key accuser in the case. Takieddine had claimed to have delivered up to €5 million in cash from late Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi to Sarkozy and his chief of staff between 2006 and 2007. He later retracted, then contradicted his own retraction, sparking a separate investigation into Sarkozy and his wife for alleged witness tampering.

Prosecutors argued that Sarkozy and his allies struck a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to bankroll his election bid in exchange for helping Libya restore its international image after the regime was implicated in deadly plane bombings in 1988 and 1989.

Investigators built their case on testimony from seven former Libyan officials, trips to Tripoli by Sarkozy’s aides, suspicious financial transfers, and notes belonging to Libya’s former oil minister Shukri Ghanem, who was found drowned in Vienna’s Danube River in 2012.

Sarkozy’s political and legal troubles extend beyond this case. He was previously convicted of corruption and influence peddling, serving part of a one-year sentence under electronic monitoring, and separately received another one-year term — partly suspended — in the so-called Bygmalion affair involving illegal campaign financing. He has appealed both rulings.

The once self-styled “hyper-president” still wields influence on the French right and reportedly maintains regular contact with President Emmanuel Macron.

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