The accusations date back to 2011, when a Libya news agency and Kadhafi himself said that the Libyan state had secretly channeled millions of euros for the Sarkozy campaign in 2007.
French prosecutors requested a seven -year arrest judgment and a fine of 300,000 euros for former President Nicolas Sarkozy, with the scope of accusations that his 2007 presidential campaign was illegally financed by the government of the former leader of Libius, Muammar Kadhafi.
The National Finance Lawyer (PNF) also requested the prohibition of Sarkozy’s civic, civil and relatives for five years, a measure that would prevent him from occupying elective positions or performing any judicial civil function.
The demand, inaugurated in January and whose conclusion is scheduled for April 10, is considered the most serious of the multiple legal scandals that have stimulated Sarkozy’s post-presidency.
Sarkozy, 70, who directed France from 2007 to 2012, faces accusations of passive corruption, illegal financing of campaigns, deviation of public funds and criminal association.
Sarkozy denied any irregularity.
The accusations date back to 2011, when a Libya news agency and Kadhafi himself said that the Libyan state had secretly channeled millions of euros for the Sarkozy campaign in 2007.
In 2012, the Mediapart French research agency published what it claimed to be a memorandum of secret services of Libya that referred to a financing agreement of 50 million euros.
Sarkozy denounced the document as a falsification and prosecuted it for defamation.
Later, the French magistrates declared that the memorandum seemed to be authentic, although there were no conclusive evidence of a complete transaction.
The researchers also bowed to a series of travel from Sarkozy’s collaborators to Libya between 2005 and 2007.
In 2016, the Franco-Lebanon businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered Tripoli’s money to the French Interior Ministry during the Sarkozy period.
Later, he denied his statement. This denial is now the object of a separate investigation into a possible manipulation of witnesses.
Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were placed under a preliminary investigation in this case.
The former Ministers of Sarkozy, Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux and Éric Woerth are also being judged, along with eight other defendants.
But prosecutors made it clear that the central figure is the former president himself, accused of consciously benefiting a “corruption pact” with a foreign dictatorship while campaigning the French Republic.
ADVERTISINGAlthough Sarkozy has already been convicted in two other criminal cases, the case of Libya is widely seen as the most politically explosive and what will probably shape its legacy.
In December 2024, the French Supreme Court confirmed its conviction for corruption and influence traffic, sentenced to a year of house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
This case originated in telephone ears, discovered during Libya research.
In a separate decision, in February 2024, a Court of Appeals in Paris considered it guilty of illegal campaign financing in its failed re -election candidacy in 2012.
ADVERTISINGSarkozy rejected accusations about Libya, considering them politically motivated and based on falsified evidence.
However, if it is convicted, the first former French president will be considered guilty of accepting illegal foreign funds to win the position.
A verdict is expected at the end of this year.
