🔗 Share this article

The former French president has asserted that his time behind bars has been “draining” and a “horrific experience” as he was present via video link at a court hearing regarding his application to serve his sentence at home.

Court Appearance from Behind Bars

The former leader, wearing a dark blue attire, appeared on camera from prison on Monday, seated at a table with his lawyers beside him. He told the court: “I want to commend all the prison staff, who are exceptionally humane, and who have eased this difficult situation – because it is a horrific experience.”

Background of the Legal Situation

Sarkozy entered the correctional facility in Paris on 21 October, after receiving a five-year jail sentence for criminal conspiracy over a plan to secure financing for his election bid from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He has appealed against the verdict, but judges ruled that because of the “exceptional gravity” of his guilty verdict, he had to be incarcerated while the legal challenge proceeded.

Unprecedented Importance

The former leader, who was France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to go behind bars.

Emotional Testimony

Sarkozy stated to the judges from prison: “I was completely unaware or intention to ask Mr Gaddafi for any kind of financing … I will never confess to something I am innocent of … I could not have foreseen that at 70 years of age, I’d be in prison. It’s an challenge that has been forced upon me. I admit it’s difficult, it’s very hard. It leaves a mark on any prisoner because it’s exhausting.”

He stated he would not try to communicate with any accused individuals or testifiers in the case. He said: “I’m French, I love my country, my family is in France. This situation has caused them pain a lot.”

Defense Lawyers Comments

His legal representative Jean-Michel Darrois, sitting next to him in the prison video link room, said: “Being in solitary confinement has been very hard for him.” He said of Sarkozy: “He’s a strong, robust and brave man and this detention has caused him great suffering.”

In court, a different legal representative, Christophe Ingrain, who had seen him daily, said Sarkozy would be more secure out of prison than within. “He has received threats against his life, has listened to shouts at night and the emergency response in a adjacent room when a prisoner injured themselves,” he said.

Present Situation

The state prosecutor Damien Brunet requested that Sarkozy’s request for release be approved. The court will announce its decision on Monday afternoon.

Incarceration Details

The former president has been placed in isolation for his own safety, in an individual cell of about 97 square feet, with his own shower and restroom. Two bodyguards are occupying a neighbouring cell to protect him.

Accounts indicated that he had been eating only yoghurt in prison as he feared any food might have been tampered with. He had been offered the facilities to prepare his own meals but refused this.

Encouragement from the Public

His online presence last week shared a recording of numerous correspondences, postcards and parcels it claimed had been delivered to his attention, including a collage, a chocolate bar and a book. “No correspondence will go unanswered,” his account announced. “The end of the story has not yet been written.”

Items in Prison

Sarkozy brought with him a life story of Christ as well as The Count of Monte Cristo, the famous work in which an wrongly accused individual is sentenced to jail but breaks out to seek retribution.

Court Case Particulars

During the lengthy court case, the state attorney had informed the judges that Sarkozy engaged in a “Faustian pact of corruption with one of the most unspeakable dictators of the last 30 years.

Sarkozy denied wrongdoing and stated he had not been part of a criminal conspiracy to seek election funding from Libya.

He was acquitted of three distinct accusations of dishonesty, misuse of Libyan public funds and illegal election campaign funding. After the public attorney also challenged these not guilty verdicts, Sarkozy will be re-tried on all the charges next year, including illegal collaboration.

Prior Legal Issues

Although the allegations of a secret campaign funding pact with the North African government formed the most significant legal case Sarkozy had faced, he had already been found guilty in two different proceedings and lost France’s highest distinction, the national recognition.

Sarkozy had previously become the initial ex-leader forced to wear an monitoring device after being convicted in a different matter of corruption and improper sway. In that case, he was given a one-year jail term but was able to serve it with an ankle monitor attached to his leg. He had the device for a quarter year before being granted conditional release.