Paris court sentences Nicolas Sarkozy to 5 years in prison for criminal
conspiracy in Libya case
[September 26, 2025]
By SYLVIE CORBET and JOHN LEICESTER
PARIS (AP) — A Paris court on Thursday sentenced former French President
Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison after finding him guilty of
criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 campaign with funds
from Libya, a verdict that the still-influential conservative leader
denounced as “a scandal.”
The historic ruling made Sarkozy the first former president of modern
France sentenced to actual time behind bars. In a major surprise, the
court ruled that the 70-year-old will be incarcerated despite his
intention to appeal. It said his imprisonment would start at a date yet
to be fixed, sparing the former head of state the humiliation of being
led out of the packed courtroom by police, bound for a cell.
The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a plot from
2005 to 2007, when he served as interior minister, to finance his
winning presidential campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for
diplomatic favors. It cleared him of three other charges including
passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the
embezzlement of public funds.
Sarkozy denounced the ruling as a humiliation for the country.
“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison.
But with my head held high. I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal,"
he said with his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, at his
side.
“I ask the French people — whether they voted for me or not, whether
they support me or not — to grasp what has just happened. Hatred truly
knows no bounds," he said.
"Should I appear in handcuffs before the Court of Appeal? Those who hate
me this much, think it’s humiliating for me. What they humiliated today
is France.”
With Sarkozy standing in front of her, chief judge Nathalie Gavarino
said in sentencing him that “the goal of the criminal conspiracy was to
give you an advantage in the electoral campaign” and “to prepare an act
of corruption at the highest possible level in the event that you were
elected President of the Republic.”
The facts were “exceptionally serious” and “capable of undermining
citizens' trust in public institutions,” with Sarkozy having used his
position as interior minister “to prepare an act of corruption at the
highest level," the judge said.
Sarkozy described the financing plot as simply “an idea.”
“I am being convicted for having supposedly allowed two of my staff
members to go ahead with the idea — the idea — of illegal financing for
my campaign," he said.
The court found that two of Sarkozy’s closest associates when he was
president -- former ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux — were
guilty of criminal association, but likewise acquitted them of some
other charges. The court sentenced Hortefeux to two years imprisonment,
but said time can be served outside prison with an electronic monitoring
bracelet. Guéant was handed a six-year prison term but wasn't
incarcerated immediately for health reasons.
The court said both Guéant and Hortefeux held secret meetings in 2005
with Abdullah al-Senoussi, the brother-in-law and intelligence chief of
former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Gadhafi was toppled and killed in an uprising in 2011, ending his
four-decade rule of the North African country. Al-Senoussi is considered
the mastermind of attacks on a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland
in 1988 and a French airliner over Niger the following year — causing
hundreds of deaths. In 2003, Libya took responsibility for both plane
bombings.
The Paris court described the contacts as a “corruption pact.” It said
favors offered to Libya by Sarkozy and associates included talks about
Al-Senoussi’s judicial fate as well as financing for nuclear power in
Libya and continued French efforts to help Libya shed its status as a
pariah state under Gadhafi.
The ruling from the panel of three judges said Sarkozy allowed his
associates to reach out to Libyan authorities “to obtain or try to
obtain financial support." But the court said it wasn't able to
determine with certainty that Libyan money ended up financing Sarkozy’s
campaign. The court explained that under French law, a corrupt scheme
can still be a crime even if money wasn’t paid or cannot be proven.
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Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 but lost his bid for reelection in
2012, denied all wrongdoing during a three-month trial earlier this
year.
Despite multiple legal scandals that have clouded his presidential
legacy, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in right-wing politics in
France and in entertainment circles, by virtue of his marriage to
Bruni-Sarkozy.
Alleged Libya financing
The accusations trace their roots to 2011, when a Libyan news agency and
Gadhafi said the Libyan state had secretly funneled millions of euros
into Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.
In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it
said was a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a 50 million-euro
funding agreement. Sarkozy denounced the document as a forgery and sued
for defamation. The court ruled Thursday that it “now appears most
likely that this document is a forgery."
Investigators also looked into a series of trips to Libya made by people
close to Sarkozy when he served as interior minister, including his
chief of staff.
In 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that
he had delivered suitcases filled with cash from Tripoli to the French
Interior Ministry under Sarkozy. He later retracted his statement.
That reversal is now the focus of a separate investigation into possible
witness tampering. Both Sarkozy and his wife were handed preliminary
charges for involvement in alleged efforts to pressure Takieddine. That
case has not gone to trial yet.
Takieddine, who was one of the co-defendants, died on Tuesday in Beirut.
He was 75. He had fled to Lebanon in 2020 and did not attend the trial.
Sarkozy denounced a ‘plot’
The trial shed light on France’s back-channel talks with Libya in the
2000s, when Gadhafi was seeking to restore diplomatic ties with the
West.
During the trial, Sarkozy denounced the allegations as a “plot” cooked
up by “liars and crooks” including the “Gadhafi clan.”
He suggested they were retaliation for his call — once installed as
France’s president — for Gadhafi’s removal. He was one of the first
Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya in 2011, when
pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world.
“What credibility can be given to such statements marked by the seal of
vengeance?” Sarkozy said during the trial.
Stripped of the Legion of Honor
In June, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal — France’s
highest award — after his conviction in a separate case.
Earlier, he was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling for
trying to bribe a magistrate in 2014 in exchange for information about a
legal case in which he was implicated.
Sarkozy was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one
year. He was granted a conditional release in May due to his age, which
allowed him to remove the electronic tag after just over three months.
In another case, Sarkozy was convicted last year of illegal campaign
financing in his failed 2012 reelection bid. He was accused of having
spent almost twice the maximum legal amount and was sentenced to a year
in prison, of which six months were suspended.
Sarkozy has appealed that verdict to the highest Court of Cassation, and
that appeal is pending
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Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France.
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