The appeal trial of the case for which the former French president was sentenced in March 2021 to three years in prison for corruption and influence influence begins
“I have never corrupted anyone,” former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday before the Paris Court of Appeals, where he is on the bench for “corruption and influence”. The new process is expected to take two weeks. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to ten years in prison.
The former president was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2021 in the so-called ‘wiretap case’ or ‘Bismuth case’: one prison sentence and two exempt from compliance. His lawyer and friend, Thierry Herzog, and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert then received the same sentence. The three appealed the sentence. Sarkozy, who was president of France between May 2007 and May 2012, reiterated Monday that he is innocent. “I came here to defend my honour,” said Sarkozy, who believes he has been “trampled underfoot” by being convicted of corruption and influence in the first instance.
“I have come to convince the court that I have done nothing,” the former French head of state added. “The words are strong: corruption, influence. I am a former president of the Republic and I have never corrupted anyone. Let’s admit it is a strange corruption, with no money, no penny for anyone, no benefit, no benefit to anyone and no victim, because no one has been harmed,” he said. “To convict, evidence is needed. Where is the evidence ?” added the ex-president indignantly.
The ‘Bismuth case’ came to light in 2014 as a result of wiretapping. The judges had tapped Sarkozy’s phone as part of another investigation into the alleged Libyan funding of his 2007 presidential campaign, which took him to the Elysée Palace. The judges then discovered that Sarkozy and Herzog were talking by phone over a secret line opened under a false identity in the name of one Paul Bismuth.
The court of first instance considered it proven on the basis of the telephone taps that Sarkozy, Herzog and Azibert participated in “a corruption pact”. The prosecutor’s office accuses Sarkozy of wanting to bribe the magistrate to obtain information protected by the secrecy of the summary of the “Bettencourt affair” in exchange for helping the judge obtain a prestigious position in the Council of State from Monaco.
In the end, Sarkozy did not intervene before the magistrate and the judge did not get the position in Monaco. The prosecution insisted during the first trial that Sarkozy did not do it because he discovered just before that the judges had tapped his phone. Sarkozy, who has other pending trials, was also sentenced to one year in prison in September 2021 for illegally financing his 2012 election campaign in the so-called ‘Bygmalion case’, but has also appealed the verdict.
Source: La Verdad
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