PARIS: A French court of appeals will on Wednesday give its verdict in one of several corruption and illegal campaign financing cases involving ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy.
The 68-year-old, who served one term from 2007 to 2012, has been embroiled in legal troubles ever since leaving office.
In March 2021, he was sentenced to three years in prison — two of them suspended and one at home with an electronic bracelet — for corruption and influence peddling through a secret telephone line that was discovered through wiretapping.
The court found that Sarkozy and his former lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had formed a “corruption pact” with a judge, Gilbert Azibert, to obtain and share information about a legal investigation.
Investigators had wiretapped Sarkozy’s two official phone lines. They discovered that he had a third unofficial one taken out in 2014 under the name “Paul Bismuth”, through which he communicated with Herzog.
The contents of these phone calls led to the 2021 corruption verdict. Read More