EBN-French prosecutors have demanded a seven-year prison sentence and a fine of 300,000 euros for former President Nicolas Sarkozy over allegations of illegal campaign financing by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The case, expected to end on April 10, is the most serious of his multiple legal scandals.
France’s former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is facing charges of corruption, illegal campaign financing, embezzlement, and criminal association. The allegations date back to 2011, when Libyan news agency and Gaddafi claimed the Libyan state secretly transferred millions of euros to Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.
In 2012, a Libyan intelligence memo mentioning a €50 million financing agreement was published, which Sarkozy denounced as a forgery. French judges later confirmed the memo’s authenticity, but no conclusive evidence was presented. Investigators also investigated Sarkozy’s associates’ trips to Libya between 2005 and 2007.
During Sarkozy’s presidency, French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine informed Mediapart in 2016 that he had sent suitcases of cash from Tripoli to the French Interior Ministry. Later, he took back what he had said. A second inquiry investigating potential witness tampering is now focused on this retraction.
In this instance, Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, were named in the investigations.
Despite the fact that Sarkozy has previously been found guilty in two other criminal instances, the Libya case is generally regarded as the most politically damaging—and the one that will most certainly influence his legacy.
He was sentenced to a year of home imprisonment and an electronic tag after France’s top court affirmed his conviction for corruption and influence peddling in December 2024. Phone calls that were intercepted while the inquiry was underway in Libya were the source of this case.
In a different decision in February 2024, a Paris appeals court found him guilty of unlawfully funding his 2012 unsuccessful reelection campaign.
The Libyan accusations have been denied by Sarkozy, who has called them politically motivated and founded on fabricated evidence. He would be the first former French president to be found guilty of collecting illegal foreign cash in order to take office, nevertheless, if found guilty.
