Sarkozy arrived at court this Monday in Paris.ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty of corruption and influence peddling crimes and sentenced to three years in prison in the case of bribery of a judge in exchange for inside information about an investigation into his presidential campaign.
Sarkozy, with his lawyer Thierry Herzog and Judge Azibert, is accused of corruption and influence peddling in the so -
called c
aso tracks
oc
aso Paul Bismuth
.
In 2014, during an investigation into alleged illegal financing of his first presidential campaign with Libyan money, judges tapped a mobile phone of the former president and his lawyer registered under the name of Bismuth.
What they discovered was what gives rise to the trial that begins now: the attempt to obtain, in exchange for favors, that Magistrate Azibert give them information about a third court case that affected Sarkozy.
Sarkozy: "I have never committed the slightest act of corruption"
The former French president has been the first former president of the Fifth Republic, the French presidential regime founded in 1958, to physically sit on the dock in a criminal trial.
His predecessor and mentor, Jacques Chirac, was tried and convicted in 2011 for embezzlement of public funds in the case of the fictitious jobs of the Paris City Council when he was mayor, but did not attend the trial due to health problems.
Sarkozy, retired from politics but influential on the French right, has also been the first former president to be tried for corruption.