Case of "eavesdropping": Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to three years in prison, one of which is closed
Nicolas Sarkozy, March 1, 2021. AFP - ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The former President of the Republic, present for the verdict of his judgment at the Paris Criminal Court, on March 1, 2021, was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling in the so-called "eavesdropping" affair with his historic lawyer Thierry Herzog.
Publicity
Read more
The existence of a "
corruption pact
" was recognized by the president of the 32nd correctional chamber, Christine Mée between the former president, now 66 years old, Me Thierry Herzog, Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer and the former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
Both were also sentenced to three years in prison, one of which was closed.
The case dates from 2014. Nicolas Sarkozy tries that year to obtain, through Me Herzog, secret information from Gilbert Azibert, then a high magistrate, in a procedure concerning the seizure of his diaries on the sidelines of the Bettencourt affair.
Information that had to be delivered by the magistrate in exchange for a boost for a prestigious position in Monaco.
By pleading the cause of the former head of state, his lawyers argued that Nicolas Sarkozy had not won his case before the Court of Cassation and that Gilbert Azibert had never had a post in Monaco.
But the judges did not go in this direction and considered that it was not necessary that the counterpart had been obtained, nor that the influence be real, to characterize the offenses of corruption and influence peddling.
Nicolas Sarkozy is therefore, with this verdict, the second head of state condemned under the Fifth Republic, after Jacques Chirac in 2011.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Nicolas sarkozy
France
Justice