A French court will deliver his ruling in the trial of former President Nicolas Sarkozy for charges that accepted the illegal finances of the campaign of the late Libyan dictator, Moamer Gaddafi, on September 25.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has denied the positions.
He is already serving a one -year sentence with an electronic bracelet in a separate influence seller.
Prosecutors argue that the former conservative leader and his assistants devoured a pact with Kadafi in 2005 to illegally finance their victorious offer of presidential elections two years later.
They requested that the 70 -year -old served a seven -year prison sentence, pay a fine of € 300,000 and a five -year prohibition of holding the position is given.
When the trial ended on Tuesday, Sarkozy described the demand for prosecutions such as “political and violent” in a “hateful media and political context.”
“I am not here to do politics, but to defend my honors and to establish the truth,” he said, refusing to comment more.
His trial closed shortly after another Paris Court condemned the extreme right -wing leader Marine Le Pen to a prison sentence and a five -year prohibition of running for the position of funds from the European Union.
The measure has questioned his attempt to defend himself from the president in 2027 and enraged her supporters, who have criticized the Judiciary.
Prosecutors claim that Sarkozy and Senior figures promised to help Gaddafi’s rehabilitation to their international image in exchange for the multitude of campaigns.
The West has blamed Tripoli for bombing bread AM Flight 103 on Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and Uta Flight 772 about Niger in 1989, killing hundreds or passengers.
Sarkozy and another 11 have been in trial since January.
Advertisement
They include the former right man of Sarkozy, Claude Guant, his head of Financing of the Eric Woerth campaign, and former minister Brice Hortefeux, all of whom deny the charges.
The case of the Prosecutor’s Office is based on statements by seven former Libyan dignitaries, trips to Libya by Guanter and Hortefeux, financial transfers and the notebooks of former Libya Oil Shukri Ghanem, which was found drowned in the Danube.
Defensor lawyer Christophe Ingrin urged the court on Tuesday to acquit the former president.
The Sarkozy argument, head of the UMP party at that time, did not need Libyan funds for its presidential campaign.
“Why would you feel the need for another meaning of financing?” Hey said. “How much did you ask? How would this money have arrived in France? How was it used in the campaign? The Prosecutor’s Office does not say, since this financing does not exist,” he said.
The Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key figure in the case and a fugitive in Lebanon, said several times that he helped deliver up to 5 million euros from Kadhafi in 2006 and 2007.
But in 2020, Takieddine retracted his statement, raising suspicions that Sarkozy and nearby allies may have paid the witness to change his story.
Tristan Gautier, another defense lawyer, also argued that Takieddine did not withdraw € 670,000 in Libya cash to finance the Sarkozy campaign, as claimed by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Advertisement
Instead, “systematically used this money for your personal spending” – “Astronomical invoices in luxury hotels”, “Yacht Cruises” or “Work in Villas,” Gautier said.
He argued that another alleged financing route through the Gaddafi Cabinet Chief was “meaningless”, since it implied the supposed role of a man who was close to one of Sarkozy’s rivals.
Sarkozy’s career has been shaded for legal problems since he lost the presidential elections of 2012. But it is still an influential figure and is known to meet regularly with President Emmanuel Macron.
]
