Back to the trial for Nicolas Sarkozy, headlines Le Soir. The appeal trial of the former head of state, in the case of alleged Libyan financing of the 2007 presidential campaign, opens on Monday, March 16 in Paris. In September, he was found guilty of criminal association and sentenced to five years in prison with immediate enforcement by the criminal court of the capital, due to corruption at the highest level of exceptional gravity. A judgment that had the effect of a seismic shock, recalls the Belgian newspaper.
In this political-financial saga that began in 2011, the former champion of the right is accused of wanting to finance his victorious 2007 presidential campaign with secret funds from the dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, which he has vehemently denied.
In January, Marine Le Pen also appeared before the Paris Court of Appeal in the case of the FN European Parliament assistants. A decorum, but not entirely the main issue, notes the Brussels daily. If the leader of the National Rally (RN) fears for her eligibility—she should be decided before the summer— for Nicolas Sarkozy, it’s another sword of Damocles hanging over him. At 71, it’s no longer his political future that concerns him but his freedom, according to Le Soir.
The former president must therefore convince the judges of his innocence if he wants to avoid going back to prison. In the fall, he spent twenty days in detention at the Santé prison before appealing and being released, once again presumed innocent. A brief incarceration that he recounted in a successful book that provided him the opportunity for a book tour across France, continues the Belgian newspaper.
Nine other defendants will be retried with the former head of state during this trial, which is expected to continue until June 3. If he is again sentenced to a prison term, Nicolas Sarkozy will only have to appeal to the Cour de Cassation, which will only rule on possible procedural errors, warns Le Soir.
