Sarkozy freed after just 20 days in jail over conspiracy
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been released from his “nightmare” in a Paris jail just 20 days into a five-year sentence over an alleged electoral funding conspiracy linked to the late Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi’s regime.
A court in the French capital decided on Monday that Sarkozy can be let out of the notorious Prison de la Santé while he challenges his conviction.
The tribunal said that keeping him behind bars would be “an exceptional measure” if there were no other ways to protect evidence and witnesses, prevent collusion among defendants or avoid flight. It ordered special measures to ensure Sarkozy stays in the country and added Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin to a list of people he’s prevented from contacting.
The first jailing of a former president in the French Republic’s history grabbed headlines across the world last month. TV crews filmed Sarkozy leaving his home hand-in-hand with his wife and right up until his Renault drove through a white door at the Paris prison. Three weeks on, French news channels showed his trip back home.
In their ruling, the Paris judges highlighted concerns justifying measures known as judicial supervision. They noted that Sarkozy has been charged for witness tampering in relation to the Libyan case and also that he has great reach as a former president.
“The risk of pressure or collusion cannot therefore be completely ruled out,” the court wrote.
During the hearing earlier on Monday to request his release, Sarkozy described his jailing as “a nightmare,” according to Agence France-Presse. “It’s hard, very hard, it certainly is for any inmate, I would even say it’s grueling.”
For security reasons, Sarkozy had been held in solitary confinement at Prison de la Santé. The 70-year-old has consistently denied any wrongdoing. One of Sarkozy’s lawyers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on his release.
Legal Quagmire
Sarkozy has been caught up in a legal quagmire that has gripped the nation ever since he lost his 2012 reelection bid.
In a separate case that involved him using a so-called burner phone to discretely discuss helping a magistrate land a prestigious job in return for a favor, Sarkozy’s overall guilt was confirmed by France’s top court last year. But he escaped incarceration in that case, briefly wearing an electronic tag instead.
Still, Sarkozy retains supporters and has sought to cast himself as the victim of a miscarriage of justice after his conviction in the Libyan case. He told the press before his jailing that he had packed a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, the tale of a man who turns vengeful after being framed.
During the Libyan trial earlier this year, the Paris judges focused on two covert meetings in Tripoli 20 years ago between top Sarkozy aides and Qaddafi’s right-hand man, Abdullah Senussi, who had been convicted in France over the terrorist bombing of a French airliner.
Ultimately, judges ruled that the encounters with a man facing an arrest warrant in France only made sense to seal a pact to seek funding ahead of Sarkozy’s plans to run in the 2007 French presidential race.
While no date has yet been set, hearings as part of Sarkozy’s appeal in that case are expected to take place next year.