French Court Sentences Sarkozy to 5 Years

UPDATE Sep 25, 2025 7:04 AM CDT

A court in Paris sentenced former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison on Thursday, reports the AP. The case revolved around allegations that his 2007 campaign illegally received money from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. The 70-year-old called the ruling a political injustice, saying hatred "has no limits," and promised to appeal.

Sep 25, 2025 6:15 AM CDT

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted Thursday by a Paris court of conspiring to illegally fund his 2007 presidential campaign with millions from the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime. However, Sarkozy was acquitted of corruption, embezzlement, and illegal election campaign financing charges, per Euronews. The verdict marks another legal setback for Sarkozy, who served as France's head of state from 2007 to 2012. Since leaving office, he has been convicted of corruption, influence peddling, and campaign finance violations in unrelated cases. The court's latest ruling is seen as the most significant blow to his post-presidential reputation.

Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy allowed aides "acting in his name" to solicit or attempt to obtain illegal funding from Gadhafi's autocratic government, per the New York Times. While the three-month trial did not yield evidence of a direct deal between Sarkozy and Gadhafi, prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy was at the center of a plan that funneled Libyan money into the campaign through secretive transactions, offshore accounts, and cash deliveries. In return, Libya was said to expect diplomatic favors and economic cooperation from France, and possible help revoking an arrest warrant against a Libyan official accused in the 1989 bombing of a French plane that killed 171 people, per the Times.

story continues below

The court case, years in the making, involved several twists, including the recent death of defendant Ziad Takieddine, a businessman who claimed to have personally delivered cash for the campaign. Sarkozy has consistently denied wrongdoing, suggesting the accusations were politically motivated and noting that investigators found little hard evidence of Libyan funds in his campaign accounts. Under French law, however, prosecutors needed only to prove the existence of a corrupt agreement, not that it was fully carried out. Sarkozy now awaits sentencing, to be put off upon appeal.