Release of Sarkozy, pending appeal, 'isn't end of sentence: it's morphing into something else'

6 weeks ago

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00:00The first and French prosecutors have requested the release from prison of former President

00:16Nicolas Sarkozy under judicial supervision. If the court agrees, it will be less than three weeks

00:22since he began serving a five-year sentence for criminal conspiracy

00:27in a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Livia.

00:34Sarkozy was jailed on October 21st pending appeal but immediately filed for early release.

00:39He told the court by a video link that life in prison is very hard while insisting he is innocent.

00:46The 70-year-old becoming the first ever former French head of state in modern times to be sent to jail.

00:54Delana D'Souza takes a look back at the case.

01:00The accusations traced their roots to 2011 when the Libyan news agency and late Libyan leader

01:06Muammar Gaddafi said the Libyan state had secretly funneled millions of euros

01:11into Nicolas Sarkozy's successful 2007 presidential campaign.

01:16Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy knowingly benefited from what they described as a corruption pact

01:21with Gaddafi's government. In exchange for millions in illegal financing, Sarkozy was said

01:26to have supported the Libyan leader's public rehabilitation on the world stage.

01:31One example was Gaddafi's five-day visit to Paris in 2007 followed by the signing of multiple contracts.

01:38Alongside Sarkozy, two suspected intermediaries were also at the heart of the case.

01:43Businessman Alexandre Djuri and French-Lebanese national Ziad Chakadine who passed away in September.

01:50Chakadine had told investigators he transported three suitcases with 5 million euros worth of cash between Libya and Paris.

01:57Yes, Gaddafi paid Sarkozy. Did he pay for his campaign? Did he pay for something else? It is not my problem.

02:08Sarkozy, who lost his re-election bid in 2012, has denied all wrongdoing. The former president says

02:16the case against him is a revenge plot cooked up by Gaddafi's clan as payback for France's role in

02:22bringing down the government in 2011. He denies this accusation. It's absurd. We don't even know the

02:29amount of this alleged funding. According to those interviewed, we have 5.6, 50 million, 400 million. We

02:37don't even know what currency it is. The case is one of many facing the former French president.

02:44Sarkozy has multiple appeals pending in other cases, including one involving his wife over alleged

02:50witness tampering. And joining me now is Paul Smith, a French politics specialist at Nottingham

02:57University. Thank you very much again for your time, Paul. Just how significant would Sarkozy's

03:04release be if indeed the court decide as such?

03:14Paul Smith from Nottingham University. Can you hear me? Because we do appear to be having some

03:19technical issues. I can hear you. I can't hear anything else. Not a problem. I'm just going to

03:24repeat the question again, Paul. If indeed the court does decide as such, how significant would

03:31Sarkozy's release be? Sarkozy's release would be a significant development.

03:44It's very likely that it will happen, although Sarkozy's camp are playing that down. They don't

03:49want to sound triumphalist. They want this to be a very low key release, that he's done a certain

03:56amount of his time. It's been negotiated. But now that he's coming out, he wants to go out very

04:01quietly. He won't be attending. It's certainly not intended that he will attend any ceremonies

04:06tomorrow to mark the 11th of November. But it's certainly a significant process.

04:12His lawyers have always argued that Sarkozy did not meet any of the legal justifications

04:19for provisional detention and had always abided by the judicial process. So why did the court decide

04:27otherwise? I think that the court's decision was really based on the idea that this was accumulation

04:34of an affairs. It shouldn't really be that way. You're judged separately for each

04:37for each offence that you've committed. But there was a sense that this was a very serious

04:44offence committed by somebody who's a very high profile figure. And given the opportunity,

04:51the tribunal clearly decided to agree with the prosecutor's office and to make an example,

05:00I suppose, to show that nobody is above the law, even a former president of the French Republic.

05:05Yes, Sarkozy did receive a visit from the Justice Minister Gérard Damanen shortly after he was

05:13incarcerated. And this despite warnings from the top prosecutor in France that it risked undermining

05:20the independence of magistrates before the appeals trial. Is this another sign of the political

05:27implications of this trial?

05:31Yes, I think so. There's always, because of the way the French system functions, there's always

05:38an over-involvement. If you come from a British background, for example, you look at the way in

05:42which these things play out, it's very different to the British system. Whereas in the French system,

05:47there's much more of a kind of crossover. And particularly someone like Darmanel, who also,

05:52of course, has always seen himself as being something of a Sarkozy disciple in the early days,

05:59certainly. And I think it does become very complicated when people look at that kind of visit

06:05to somebody in detention, that it becomes a little bit complicated to exactly understand what's going

06:15on. I don't think it does anybody. Certainly, I don't think it does someone like Darmanel any good.

06:21However, Darmanel, if he's planning a run for the presidency, not in 2027, but 2032,

06:28would want to be signalling something to the old school Sarkozy supporters. So there's a political

06:34dimension there as well. But again, that goes back to your original question. This sort of crossover

06:39between justice and politics is a very complicated affair in France.

06:42What about public opinion in this country? Does the population want to see Sarkozy walk away as a

06:49free man? I think that there's a general feeling that not necessarily the punishment was excessive,

06:56that he probably deserved to go to prison. But there's an awful lot of comments, I suppose it

07:01depends where you get your comments from, that it's enough. Where's he going to go? He's not going to try

07:07escape to flee the country. So probably the experience, and he himself has talked about

07:14how difficult the experience is. Well, he's a former interior minister, so he should know all about

07:20what prisons look like, at least from the outside. But how difficult that experience has been,

07:25not just to him as an individual, but understanding what it is to actually lose your liberty.

07:31So I think that there's, but I think that public opinion generally in France seems to feel that,

07:36okay, he's done, he's done part of, he's not full five years by any means, but he's done part of the,

07:41the sentence and, and there is very low risk. We have to think about that. And so he should be

07:47probably released. But of course, there are all kinds of other things. This isn't,

07:51this isn't the end of the sentence. It's a kind of, it's morphing into something else.

07:57And he does have other legal trials pending, doesn't he?

08:03Yes, it's not, everything is not over quite yet for, for Nicolas Sarkozy. And again, this comes back to

08:10the, the, the difficulty, it seems for many French politicians, not just Nicolas Sarkozy to keep their,

08:16to keep the metaphorical noses clean, that there seem to be lots of things going on in their lives

08:21that become very complicated. Uh, so it's not quite the, uh, not quite the end of, uh, of his time

08:27up for the judges to, uh, to explain himself. Paul Smith from Nottingham University. We're

08:33going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Release of Sarkozy, pending appeal, 'isn't end of sentence: it's morphing into something else'

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