French justice decided this Monday. Early in the morning, the Attorney General’s Office had requested his release under judicial control. The decision comes after a hearing in which the former president participated by videoconference from prison. “It is hard, very hard. It surely is for any detainee. I would even say that it is exhausting,” Sarkozy said during his speech before the court before thanking “the humanity” of the officials who have dealt with him these days and have made “this nightmare (…) bearable.”
Sarkozy is thus released from prison after three weeks of imprisonment. The former conservative president was sentenced to five years in prison on September 25 of his presidential campaign in 2007 by the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The judge now decides that the former president continues serving his sentence on provisional release until his appeal is resolved.
On October 21, Sarkozy became the first former head of state of France to pass through the gates of a penitentiary center to serve a sentence behind bars. He was admitted to the La Santé prison in Paris, where there are 754 detainees. A prison, like so many in France, occupied beyond its capacity.
During his stay in prison, the conservative leader did not meet the other prisoners. The former head of state has remained in an isolation area so that he would not be in contact with the other prisoners. Sarkozy, who upon entering received threats and shouts from other prisoners, has not been a detainee like the others. The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, confirmed that the former president of the Republic benefited from a security device completely unprecedented in prison history.
Held in solitary confinement in a sector that has around twenty cells, Sarkozy has been permanently accompanied by two armed security officers, “in consideration of his status and the threats that weigh on him,” according to the minister’s words. This innovation caused some incomprehension even within the prison administration itself, as well as a violent reaction from the UFAP-UNSA-Justice union. This center, one of the two main unions of penitentiary officials, denounced in a statement “a senseless device, a security madness and, above all, an unprecedented humiliation for the entire penitentiary body.”
After being convicted on September 25, he denounced a blow to the rule of law. The former president maintains that he is innocent and has received support from the political class.
The weekend before entering prison, Sarkozy visited President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace. He also received a controversial visit in prison from the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, who justified his act as a measure to control the security of a former president. “Ensuring the safety of a former president of the Republic in prison, an unprecedented event, does not in any way threaten the independence of the judges, but is part of the duty of vigilance of the head of the administration that I am, responsible to Parliament according to article 20 of the Constitution,” replied the Minister of Justice.
The Paris court considered it proven that between 2005 and 2007, when he was Minister of the Interior, Sarkozy maneuvered to obtain financial support from the Libyan regime through his closest collaborators. He was acquitted of the crimes of passive corruption and diversion of funds because, although “it has been confirmed that there were Libyan funds that reached France”, it was not possible to prove that they were destined for his presidential campaign.
In this tentacular case, 11 other people were involved, including two of his former ministers. This is the fifth trial that the former French president has faced in the last five years.
Last December, Sarkozy was already sentenced to three years in prison for corruption and influence peddling in the so-called eavesdropping case. He was accused of trying to buy a prosecutor to inform him of another investigation in which he was involved and which was under summary secrecy in exchange for favors. Since it was three years, he only had to serve one under house arrest, with an electronic bracelet.
