PARIS (AP) — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is set to learn Monday when and where he will serve time in prison for criminal conspiracy for a scheme to use funds from Libya to finance his winning 2007 campaign.
The first ex-president in modern French history to be imprisoned, Sarkozy maintains his innocence and has protested the decision to put him behind bars pending his appeal.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s office, or PNF, will instruct the 70-year-old Sarkozy which prison to report to and when, in what is expected to be a relatively short and formal meeting on Monday afternoon.
“We will tell him the date, the place and the hour he has to be there,” said Bérénice Dinh, the PNF’s general secretary and spokesperson.
But the PNF doesn’t intend to make that information public, to spare Sarkozy the ordeal of being filmed at the start of his incarceration.
While long retired from active politics, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in conservative circles. He served as president from 2007 to 2012. He was previously convicted in another corruption case but hasn’t had to serve jail time.
For safety reasons, Sarkozy is expected to be incarcerated under conditions reserved for high-profile inmates, possibly in a special “VIP area” of La Santé prison in Paris, where some of France’s most notorious criminals have been imprisoned.
Once behind bars, Sarkozy will be able to file a release request to the appeals court. Judges will then have up to two months to process the request.
Sarkozy was handed a five-year sentence on Sept. 25 in a sprawling legal case after a decade of investigation. The Paris court said the prison sentence was effective immediately instead of suspending it pending appeal, citing “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense.”
Sarkozy was given 18 days after the ruling to “organize his professional life” before Monday’s imprisonment decision.
The French justice ministry said in 2024 that 90% of adults convicted and sentenced to at least two years in prison are immediately incarcerated.
The court said Sarkozy, as a presidential candidate and interior minister, used his position “to prepare corruption at the highest level” from 2005 to 2007 to finance his presidential campaign with funds from Libya, then led by longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
The court cleared Sarkozy of three other charges and said there is no evidence the money transferred from Libya to France ended up being used in Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign or for his “direct personal enrichment.”
Sarkozy consistently has said he is innocent and the victim of a plot by people linked to the Libyan government.
He suggested the allegations were retaliation for his call in 2011 for Gadhafi’s removal. Gadhafi was toppled and killed amid Arab Spring pro-democracy protests that year.
An appeal trial will take place at a later date, possibly in the spring.
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