| Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. © AFP=News1 © News1 Reporter Dongmyeong Woo |
A French court has sentenced former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to one year in prison for illegally financed elections, AFP news agency reported on the 30th.
However, a French court added that he would not serve a sentence in prison given that Sarkozy is 66 years old.
Former President Sarkozy was under investigation for allegedly conspiring with an acquaintance to issue fake receipts during re-election in 2012 and for creating illegal funds.
Previously, he was sentenced to three years in prison, including two years of probation, for buying a judge in March.
Sarkozy, who served for six years from 2007 to 2012, is said to have offered a job to a judge in exchange for receiving internal secrets related to his investigation into allegations of political funds. According to law enforcement authorities, Sarkozy is charged with promising important positions in Monaco after resigning in 2014 in exchange for sharing internal secrets to then-Chief Justice Gilbert Agibert.
At the time, French law enforcement authorities were investigating the circumstances that Sarkozy had received a large amount of illegal political funds from Lillian Bettencourt, heiress of L’Oreal, a French cosmetics company, ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
Sarkozy was acquitted of the charge of receiving political funds from Betancourt, but was found guilty of bribing a judge and sentenced to prison. Judicial authorities believed that there was some kind of consultation between Sarkozy and his lawyer, Justice Agibert.
Sarkozy, meanwhile, is the first former president to be convicted since 1958, when the Fifth Republic was established in France.
khan@news1.kr
