The French justice system began this Monday to examine the request for parole presented by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been in a Paris prison for 20 days. On October 21, the right-winger became the first French head of state to end up behind bars since the end of the Second World War and the first from a country already within the European Union (EU).
The former leader of the French right is there and, in addition, the authorities installed two police officers in the neighboring cell for his protection.
“It is the arrest that constitutes a threat to Nicolas Sarkozy, not the other way around,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain during the hearing before the Paris appeal court, when requesting his release. The prosecutor’s office was also in favor of the former president’s release from prison, but with judicial control measures.
Sarkozy appeared by videoconference from prison wearing a dark blue jacket, sweater and shirt. His wife, the singer, and two of his children attended the court hearing, a journalist from . The decision could come this Monday, according to a judicial source, around one-thirty in the afternoon.
The former president described his stay in prison “like a nightmare.” “I want to thank the exceptional humanity of the prison staff because they have turned this prison nightmare into something bearable,” Sarkozy declared, according to EFE. He has said, again, that he is innocent and that if he comes out he will not destroy evidence or escape, a reality that the prosecutor supports. He could be released today if there is a positive resolution, although it is feasible with an electronic handcuff or ankle bracelet and house arrest.
The process
Sarkozy was convicted of allowing his associates to approach the Libya of , who died in 2011, to obtain funds to illegally finance his victorious 2007 campaign.
Although the process did not demonstrate that the money was used as a “last resort”, the court stressed that it did leave Libya, which is why it convicted him of illicit association and the “exceptional seriousness of the events.”
His conviction was accompanied by controversy, since the court ordered him to be imprisoned without waiting for the outcome of his appeal. The appeal trial should be held in the coming months.
But since he was already 70 years old, the conservative politician was able to submit a request for parole the same day he went to prison.
If justice accepts his request, the president between 2007 and 2012 could serve his sentence at home with an electronic anklet, like the one he already used at the beginning of the year in the context of another case.
This conviction is not the first against this political animal, who has two others for corruption, influence peddling and illegal campaign financing in 2012, and has more open cases.
