Former President Sarkozy leaves prison under conditions

France

Former President Sarkozy leaves prison under conditions

He was the first former head of state in recent French history to be put behind bars. Now Sarkozy is released. But does that mean he’s off the hook?

Accompanied by a huge media frenzy, France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy left the Paris La Santé prison in the afternoon after almost three weeks in prison. A police column accompanied the vehicle with the former head of state on the way to his house in the chic 16th arrondissement in the capital.

An appeals court had previously decided that the 70-year-old, who was sentenced to five years in prison in the Libya affair, could await his appeal process in freedom under certain conditions. The process is expected to start in spring.

In a unique move, Sarkozy was sent to prison in October with an arrest warrant. In the affair surrounding alleged campaign funds from Libya, a Paris criminal court sentenced him to five years in prison for membership in a criminal organization. The court ordered that the sentence be temporarily enforced, although the conservative appealed. Never before in recent French history has a former head of state received such a harsh punishment.

Sarkozy then had to spend almost three weeks in the Paris prison La Santé. He was housed in an isolated and specially protected area, but in a normal, simple cell. The conservative’s lawyers immediately requested that the 70-year-old be released from prison. This has now been granted.

Sarkozy and his lawyers were connected to the court decision about his release in the Paris Palace of Justice via video from prison. He attended the court hearing wearing a dark blue suit jacket, sweater and shirt. “It’s hard, it’s very hard, that certainly applies to all prisoners, I would even say it’s grueling,” Sarkozy said at the end when asked about his short time behind bars. In court, his wife Carla Bruni attended the hearing alongside other family members.

Among the conditions that the appeals court attached to Sarkozy’s release from prison is that the ex-president is not allowed to leave France. A ban on contact with those involved in the process and with Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin was also imposed. He had visited Sarkozy, who was his former political mentor, in prison and thus attracted criticism. Darmanin had justified the visit in advance by saying that he wanted to see whether the security conditions were appropriate.

The Libya affair is about the accusation that money from the leadership of then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was said to have flowed illegally for Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign. The Paris criminal court saw no evidence of this. In its reasoning for the verdict, however, it assumed that conservatives and close confidants of Gaddafi had definitely tried to obtain funds from the Libyan ruler.