A French court is on Monday to begin hearing an appeal against a three-year sentence imposed on former president Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and illegal influence peddling.
Sarkozy was handed the sentence last year. Two years were suspended and one to be spent under house arrest with electronic monitoring. The appeal is set to take two weeks but is not likely to be the end of Sarkozy's legal difficulties.
According to the court, Sarkozy attempted in 2014 to secure confidential information from prosecutor Gilbert Azibert regarding a different case via his lawyer, Thierry Herzog. Azibert would in return receive presidential support in applying for a post in Monaco.
All three were found guilty, receiving similar sentences, with the court describing their crimes as serious as they had been committed by a former head of state. The sentence was the most severe handed down to a former president in the history of the Fifth Republic founded in 1958.
Sarkozy's lawyer has described the sentence as "extremely hard" and "unjustified."
A few months later, in September 2021, another court sentenced Sarkozy to one year for illegal campaign funding. He had exceeded permissible spending levels during his failed 2012 re-election campaign by at least €20 million ($21 million), it found.
Sarkozy's party was found to have concealed the payments through a system of false accounts, The court found that, while Sarkozy had not devised the system, he had ignored warnings and continued to campaign. He has appealed this sentence as well.
