Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was facing up to 10 years in prison when he appeared in court today accused of arranging a ‘corruption pact’ with the late Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
Sarkozy, 69, was notably suntanned when he took his place in a Paris dock on Monday afternoon, having just returned from a holiday in the Seychelles with his third wife, Carla Bruni, the 57-year-old former supermodel.
She was not in court, despite facing charges of her own in connection with the case.
Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy accepted some £42million from Gaddafi to fund his successful election campaign in 2007.
In return, Sarkozy pledged to rehabilitate oil-rich Libya’s image after it was blamed for terrorist atrocities such as the Lockerbie Bombing and the shooting dead of a female police officer in London.
Jean-François Bohnert, head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) outlined details of ‘one of the most serious cases that the Republic has ever known.’
Mr Bohnert said a 10 year investigation had led to Sarkozy appearing in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court.
‘The corruption pact was designed to improve relations with Libya,’ said Mr Bohnert.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was facing up to 10 years in prison when he appeared in court today accused of arranging a ‘corruption pact’ with the late Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, greets Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on December 10, 2007
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves during a break in a hearing on the first day of his trial
He insisted the prosecution ‘was not a political one’ and that Sarkozy ‘had not been found guilty in advance’.
Wearing a black tie, white shirt and blue business suit, Sarkozy paused to shake hands with uniformed police officers guarding the court.
He went on trial with 12 other defendants, at least two of whom have been on the run since the publication of a 577-page summary report last year.
The charges, which all deny, are: ‘Corruption, receiving stolen public funds, illegal campaign financing, and criminal association’.
Sarkozy was last month definitively convicted of bribing a judge in a separate case, meaning he was likely to be wearing an electronic tag under his trousers on his right ankle.
The PNF alleges that Sarkozy first requested financing during a visit to Libya when he was France’s Interior Minister in 2005.
This led to ‘the corruption pact’ between the politician and Gaddafi which saw suitcases full of cash being delivered by middlemen, it is alleged.
The Gaddafi money is said to have been laundered through bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland.
Nicolas Sarkozy and former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi pictured during the signature of 10 billion euros of trade contracts between the two countries, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on December 10, 2007
Carla Bruni (left, pictured with her husband in June 2024) is 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
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 downing of PanAm Flight 103, with the loss of 270 lives, over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 2008.
The assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy four years earlier was also still causing outrage, especially as no one was ever brought to justice for it.
Gaffafi’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.
The former head of state’s former ministers Claude Gueant and Eric Woerth have also been charged in relation to the allegations, and are in the dock.
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.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy exits the courtroom at the Paris courthouse in Paris, on January 6, 2025, during the opening hearing of his trial
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, right, and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy during the National anthems at the Bab Azizia Palace in Tripoli on July 25, 2007
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.
Within a few days of Sarkozy losing his presidential immunity from prosecution in 2012, fraud squad detectives raided the Paris home he shares with his third wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni.
In 2021, Sarkozy was found guilty of illegally funding his campaign for re-election and faced prison time.
The verdict handed down at the Paris Correctional Court followed a five-week trial during which prosecutors said the politician was guilty of fiddling the books during his unsuccessful 2012 bid to become head of state.
It followed Sarkozy already being given three years in jail for bribing a judge – a conviction that was confirmed on appeal last month, as Sarkozy was told that he could serve his prison sentence while wearing an electronic tag.
Carla Bruni is 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
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’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.
The Gaddafi trial is listed for three months, and is likely to end in early April.
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