"You will relax Nicolas Sarkozy".
This is what Me Jacqueline Laffont, the advice of the former President of the Republic, had demanded during his plea in December.
The lawyer was not heard on Monday, since the Paris Criminal Court decided, two and a half months after his trial, to sentence Nicolas Sarkozy to three years in prison, including two years suspended,
in the so-called "eavesdropping" case.
A sentence which may require an adjustment, in particular in the form of an electronic bracelet.
The former head of state was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling offenses.
The court thus considered that the corruption pact was established thanks to a “bundle of serious and concordant indications”.
The president mentioned in particular "common interests towards the same goal: that of obtaining a favorable decision in favor of Nicolas Sarkozy".
The former head of state had proclaimed his innocence at the bar, asking to be "washed away from this infamy".
Like him, the lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former magistrate Gilbert Azibert were tried for corruption and influence peddling.
They were both found guilty of these offenses and also sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended.
The lawyer was also banned from practicing his profession for five years.
"Entrism within the institution"
The National Financial Prosecutor's Office had also acquired the conviction that a corruption pact had been made between the three men in early 2014 to learn about and influence a procedure underway within the Court of Cassation "by practicing an entryism within institution and veiling it through the use of occult lines ”- the famous telephone lines in the name of Paul Bismuth.
Concretely, Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of having obtained through his lawyer Thierry Herzog information covered by secrecy from Gilbert Azibert about an appeal then under examination at the Court of Cassation in the case Bettencourt.
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At the time, Nicolas Sarkozy had benefited from a dismissal in this case, but he was seeking to have the high court annul the seizure of his presidential agendas, which could have been used in other legal proceedings.
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In return for this information, the former head of state is suspected of having promised to give Gilbert Azibert a "boost" for a prestigious position in Monaco, where the latter has never been in the end. appointed.