A French court on Monday sentenced former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to three years in prison for corruption and influence peddling, but suspended the sentence for two years.
Nicolas Sarkozy was president from 2007 to 2012 and was convicted of trying to illegally obtain information from a high-ranking magistrate in 2014 about an ongoing investigation into his campaign finances.
The judge said Sarkozy did not need to spend time in jail. He could serve his sentence by wearing an electronic bracelet at home.
The Paris prosecutor had requested a two-year prison sentence and a two-year suspended sentence for Sarkozy and his co-defendants, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert.
Herzog and Azibert were found guilty and sentenced to prison.
After a lengthy investigation and legal entanglements, the trial began late last year. The judge handed down Sarkozy's sentence this Monday afternoon (French time) in front of a packed courtroom.
He was dubbed the "wiretapping case." It began in 2013 when investigators tapped phones belonging to Sarkozy and his lawyer Herzog, in the context of an investigation against Sarkozy.
They discovered that the two men promised Magistrate Gilbert Azibert a prestigious position in Monaco, in exchange for information on an ongoing investigation into allegations that Sarkozy had accepted illegal payments from L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his successful campaign. presidential 2007.
Sarkozy faces other accusations. In just over two weeks he will face trial again on charges of violating campaign finance rules during his failed 2012 re-election bid by working with a friendly public relations firm to hide the true cost of his campaign.
In another case, French prosecutors are investigating Libya's alleged illegal campaign finance. The late former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi reportedly provided Sarkozy's 2007 campaign with millions of euros shipped to Paris in suitcases.
Other French leaders convicted
In 2011, former French President Jacques Chirac was found guilty of embezzlement of public funds and sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence for employing fictitious civil servants when he was mayor of Paris in the early 1990s.
The last French head of state sentenced to prison was Marshal Philippe Pétain in 1945, for treason after collaborating with the Nazis.
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