{"id":44506,"date":"2021-09-30T11:49:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T11:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/france-s-sarkozy-convicted-of-illegal-campaign-financing\/"},"modified":"2021-09-30T11:55:17","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T11:55:17","slug":"france-s-sarkozy-convicted-of-illegal-campaign-financing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/france-s-sarkozy-convicted-of-illegal-campaign-financing\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s Sarkozy convicted of illegal campaign financing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarkozy, 66, is unlikely to go to jail despite Thursday\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

He is expected to appeal the sentence, a move that will in effect suspend it.<\/p>\n

The judge said he could serve the sentence at home with an electronic tag.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy, France\u2019s president from 2007 to 2012, was accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount of 22.5 million euros ($26m) on a re-election bid that he lost to the Socialist Party\u2019s Francois Hollande.<\/p>\n

Part of the sum was allegedly used to fund extravagant campaign rallies and then hire public relations agency Bygmalion to mask the real cost of the events.<\/p>\n

At Sarkozy\u2019s five-week trial in May and June, the prosecution portrayed him as having a \u201ccavalier\u201d attitude to the public money available to candidates during campaigning, saying he ignored warnings from his accountants about the ballooning costs.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said the court\u2019s judge had concluded it was \u201cclear that Sarkozy must have known that his campaign team were spending over the legal limit\u201d.<\/p>\n

The verdict was harsher than expected, she said, adding that with the latest conviction, Sarkozy\u2019s political career was definitively \u201cover\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cProsecutors had asked for a year-long sentence but with six months suspended,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in terms of the symbolism, it won\u2019t be lost on the public that this verdict sends out a message to political candidates and parties that they cannot just act with impunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

France is heading into a presidential election next year.<\/p>\n

{{Sarkozy denies wrongdoing}}<\/p>\n

The ruling came after Sarkozy was found guilty on March 1 of corruption and influence peddling in another case. He was given a year in prison, and a two-year suspended prison sentence in that case, but is free pending an appeal.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy, who was not present in court on Thursday, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in both cases.<\/p>\n

He told the court in June that he had not been involved in the logistics of his campaign, nor aware of how money was spent during the election run-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine me going into a meeting to discuss the cost of flags?\u201d he said, before claiming he had \u201ctoo much to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment I was told things were in order, I had no reason to give it more thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the court ultimately decided Sarkozy was made aware of the overspending, that he did not act on it and that it was not necessary for him to approve each individual expenditure to be responsible.<\/p>\n

\"Nicolas<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A Paris court has handed former French President Nicolas Sarkozy a one-year prison sentence after finding him guilty of illegal campaign financing of his failed 2012 re-election bid.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[75],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-44506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","tag-homenews","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44506"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=44506"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=44506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}