PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy went on trial Monday charged with accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Sarkozy’s career has been shadowed by legal troubles since he lost the 2012 presidential election. He has been convicted in two other cases and is being investigated in two more but he remains an influential figure and is also known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.
The new trial started barely half a month after France’s top appeals court in December rejected his appeal against a one-year prison sentence for influence peddling, which he is to serve by wearing an electronic tag rather than in jail.
Sarkozy was present in the Paris court when the latest trial began but made no comment.
Twelve suspects are standing trial, including former close aides, accused of devising a pact with Kadhafi to illegally fund Sarkozy’s victorious 2007 election bid. They deny the charges.
If convicted, Sarkozy, 69, faces up to 10 years in prison for harges of concealing embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing.
The trial is due to last until April 10.
Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination. He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain. “There was no Libyan financing.”
Sarkozy is still not wearing the electronic tag — a process which could take several weeks — and spent Christmas in the Seychelles with his wife, model and singer Carla Bruni, and their daughter.
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