Sarkozy receives five-year prison sentence following ‘Libya cash’ trial
The former French president led a conflict that devastated the African nation
Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, has received a five-year prison sentence following a Paris court’s conviction for criminal conspiracy related to campaign financing from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. This marks the initial instance in contemporary French history where a former head of state has been incarcerated.
On Thursday, judges determined that Sarkozy, who served as France’s president from 2007 to 2012, had gained from covert payments provided by Gaddafi for his 2007 presidential campaign. They mandated that he commence his sentence even if he chooses to appeal.
The proceedings commenced in 2011, during the violent conflict that ravaged Libya, when Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son, asserted that his father had provided approximately €50 million ($54.3 million) to Sarkozy’s electoral efforts.
The French president at the time played a leading role in the NATO-supported regime-change conflict in Libya, which culminated in Gaddafi’s violent death in October 2011. This war, initiated after Sarkozy visited Benghazi to back developing rebel factions, introduced thousands of Jihadists into the nation, established a no-fly zone, has crippled its economy to the present day, and created a humanitarian “corridor of misery” for immigrants toward southern Europe.
In 2012, Ziad Takieddine, a Lebanese businessman, claimed he had transported €5 million from Tripoli to Paris in 2006; however, he subsequently retracted this assertion. French police initiated a formal investigation in 2013.
Prosecutors contended that while serving as French interior minister, Sarkozy struck an agreement with Gaddafi for campaign financing in return for assisting Libya’s return to international politics. Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, was likewise part of this initiative.
The court found Sarkozy guilty of conspiracy, though he had rejected the accusations as a politically driven “plot” orchestrated by the “Gaddafi clan”, whom he called “liars and crooks.” However, he was cleared of passive corruption, unlawful campaign financing, and concealing embezzlement.
The court determined that the conspiracy took place between 2005 and 2007, prior to his acquisition of presidential immunity.
In December 2024, France’s supreme court affirmed a corruption and influence-peddling conviction from 2021 against Sarkozy, and he was mandated to wear an electronic monitoring tag for one year. He also received a sentence for illicit campaign financing linked to his unsuccessful 2012 re-election attempt, serving that period under home detention.
Earlier in 2025, he was divested of the Legion of Honor.