Former president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to prison due to illegal financing from funds linked to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, becoming the first former president of the Fifth Republic to be handed a prison sentence.
The Paris criminal court convicted Mr Sarkozy for criminal conspiracy in the suspected Libyan financing of his 2007 campaign, on Thursday, September 25.
The judgment followed three months of hearings and a 400-page ruling.
The court dismissed several corruption charges but said the former president had formed a network to prepare illicit funding.
He was fined €100,000, stripped of civic rights for five years, and banned from office during that period.
Seven others, including Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, were convicted, while three men - Eric Woerth, Edouard Ullmo and Ahmed Bugshan - were acquitted.
Mr Sarkozy announced he will appeal, but the sentence is immediately enforceable. He is due before the financial prosecutor on October 13 to be given a prison entry date.
