French prosecutors demand seven-year sentence for Sarkozy
World
By
AFP
| May 13, 2026
French former president Nicolas Sarkozy leaves the Palais de Justice courthouse in Paris, on May 13, 2026. [AFP]
French prosecutors on Wednesday requested a seven-year prison sentence for former president Nicolas Sarkozy in an appeal trial on charges that he sought illegal Libyan financing for his 2007 election.
Sarkozy, France's right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, has always denied any wrongdoing in the case, but last year became modern France's first former president to go to jail, before he was released after 20 days pending his appeal trial.
The case revolves around accusations Sarkozy sought campaign funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya in exchange for help restoring the Libyan leader's international image.
Prosecutors had also requested seven years in Sarkozy's first trial on charges of seeking to acquire campaign funding from Libya, corruption, illegal campaign financing, and receiving misappropriated Libyan public funds.
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A lower court sentenced Sarkozy to five years on the charge of seeking to acquire the funding, but acquitted him of the three other charges.
Its ruling did not follow the prosecutors' conclusion that Sarkozy actually received or used Libyan funds for his campaign.
In the latest trial, prosecutors called the former president the "instigator" of the alleged pact.
Gaddafi became a pariah after the West laid the blame on Libya for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland -- which killed 259 people -- and of UTA Flight 772 over Niger the following year, which killed 170 people.
Gaddafi was killed in 2011 after being captured by the forces of the National Transitional Council, which ousted his government in a civil war.
Prosecutors also requested Sarkozy be banned from office for five years on top of the prison sentence.
Sarkozy, 71, told the court there was "not a single cent of Libyan money" in the campaign that saw him elected in 2007.
He denied his aides made any promises to Gaddafi's then military intelligence chief, Abdallah Senussi, who had been linked to the bombings.
A French court had in 1999 sentenced Senussi to life in jail in absentia for the attack on UTA Flight 772, and he had been wanted for questioning over the Lockerbie bombing.
One of Sarkozy's lawyers, Christophe Ingrain, told the press his client was innocent.
"There was no financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign by Libya," he said.
A decision is expected on November 30.
If convicted, Sarkozy could then appeal to France's highest court.
The former French president has faced a raft of accusations since leaving office, all of which he has denied.
He has received two definitive convictions in other cases -- linked to overspending in his failed 2012 re-election bid, and later trying to extract favours from a judge.