Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of criminal plot

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of a criminal plot in a case linked to the taking of millions of euros in illicit funds from the late Libyan chief Col Muammar Gaddafi.

The Paris Criminal Tribunal acquitted it from all other accusations, including passive corruption and the financing of illegal campaigns.

Sarkozy, who claims that the case is politically motivated, has been accused of having used Gaddafi funds to finance his 2007 electoral campaign.

In exchange, the accusation alleged that Sarkozy promised to help Gaddafi to fight against his reputation as pariah with Western countries.

Sarkozy, 70, was president of France from 2007 to 2012.

The investigation was opened in 2013, two years after Saif al-Islam, son of the head of the then, accused Sarkozy first of taking millions of his father’s money for the funding of the campaign.

The following year, the Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine – who worked for a long time as an intermediary between France and the Middle East – said that he had written that the candidacy of Sarkozy’s campaign was “abundantly” funded by Tripoli and that the 50 million euros (43 million pounds Sterling) were prosecuted after being the president.

The wife of Sarkozy, the former model and singer of Italian origin Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was charged last year to have hidden evidence of the Gaddafi affair and to associate with criminals to commit fraud, which she denies.

Since the loss of its re -election offer in 2012, Sarkozy has been targeted by several criminal investigations.

He also appealed against a February 2024 decision which found him guilty of spending too much on his 2012 re -election campaign, then hiring a public relations company to cover it. He received a one -year sentence, six months of which were suspended.

In 2021, he was found guilty of having tried to bring a judge in 2014 and became the first former French president to undergo a childcare sentence. In December, the Paris Court of Appeal judged that he could serve his time at home with a label instead of going to prison.