French prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence against former President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday, in a trial over accusations that his 2007 campaign received illegal financing from the Libyan government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Such a sentence would be unprecedented in modern French history for a former president.
Mr. Sarkozy, a conservative politician who led France from 2007 to 2012, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and judges at the Paris court where he has been on trial since January may or may not follow the prosecution’s request if he is found guilty. His lawyers are expected to lay out their closing arguments next month, and the court is expected to defer its verdict to a later date.
The severity of the sentence request showed that the Libya case is a far more serious threat to Mr. Sarkozy’s legacy than his many other legal entanglements, some of which have already resulted in convictions. In addition to prison time, prosecutors also requested that Mr. Sarkozy, 70, pay a fine of 300,000 euros, or about $340,000; that he be barred from running for office, and that he be stripped of certain civic rights.
Mr. Sarkozy, who no longer holds public office but retains some political influence, lashed out against the sentencing recommendations on Thursday, saying in a statement on social media that the “falseness and violence of the accusations and the outrageousness of the sentence demanded” aimed to “mask the weakness” of the prosecution’s case.
The Libya case is sprawling, convoluted and explosive, involving accusations that Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign illegally accepted funding from Mr. el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman who was killed by opposition fighters in 2011.
Mr. Sarkozy is facing charges of illegal campaign financing, criminal conspiracy, concealing the misappropriation of public funds and passive corruption (a charge that applies to people suspected of receiving money or favors).
Over the past few days, prosecutors who specialize in financial crimes depicted Mr. Sarkozy as the key decision maker in an “unthinkable, unprecedented, obscene corruption pact” with the Qaddafi government, involving a complex web of political and financial ties between Mr. Sarkozy’s advisers, Libyan officials and businessmen or bankers who acted as intermediaries.
Twelve other people are also standing trial on similar charges, and prosecutors have requested sentences ranging from one to six years in prison and fines of up to four million euros.
Since 1945, only one other former French head of state has been found guilty by a court of law: Jacques Chirac, who was convicted in 2011 of a less striking form of corruption, misusing public funds when he was mayor of Paris, and was given a suspended sentence.
Mr. Sarkozy has faced multiple accusations of financial impropriety since he left office, although that has done little to dent his popularity with the base of his conservative party or to prevent his memoirs from flying off the shelves.
Some of the cases have been dropped. But in 2021, he was convicted of trying to obtain information from a judge about a court case against him and is currently serving one year under a form of house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
He was also convicted in 2021 for illegally financing his unsuccessful 2012 re-election campaign, which wildly exceeded France’s spending limits. That case is still going through the appeals process.
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