*Sarkozy To Serve 5 Years
*French Judicial Model Means He Must First Go To Prison While Appeal Is Heard
Lawyers for the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy have said they will try to ensure he serves as little time in prison as possible, after he was sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to get election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
“We’re going to make sure that his incarceration will be as short as possible,” Sarkozy’s lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, told the BFMTV news channel today, September 26, after he became the first French president to go to jail.
Sarkozy, who was a Republican president from 2007 to 2012, has lodged an appeal against his conviction, but a special provision by judges means he must begin a jail term in the coming weeks, while any appeal process goes ahead.
Henri Guaino, a Sarkozy ally who once served as his special adviser, told RTL radio that the former president’s conviction was “a humiliation for the state and its institutions” and urged the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to pardon Sarkozy so he could avoid prison.
Macron has not commented on the conviction and sentence.
Senior figures in Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party have sent messages of public support but amid rising distrust of the political class, have stopped short of calling for a pardon.
Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, who heads the party, expressed his “full support and friendship”, adding he had no doubt Sarkozy would devote all his energy to defending himself on appeal.
Sarkozy, 70, has an appointment with the state prosecutor on October 13 when he will be told the date of his incarceration, which could be as early as October or November.
French media speculated that he would probably be imprisoned in La Santé prison in the south of Paris in an individual cell but mixing with other prisoners in the courtyard and common areas.
A prison officer said typically prisoners at the facility were in their cells 23 hours a day.
Like any other prisoner, once Sarkozy enters jail, his lawyers will be able to petition for his release or for him to serve his term in a different way, such as with an electronic bracelet. That request would have to be heard by a judge.
PHOTO CAPTION: Sarkozy.
