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| Europe |
| Former French president Sarkozy convicted of corruption, handed jail sentence |
| 2021-03-01 |
| PARIS (Reuters) - Judges found former president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of trying to bribe a judge and of influence-peddling on Monday and sentenced him to three years in jail, with two years suspended. Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, had denied any wrongdoing, saying he was the victim of a witch-hunt by financial prosecutors who used excessive means to snoop on his affairs. Retired from politics but still influential among conservatives, Sarkozy has 10 days to appeal the ruling. He is the second former president in modern France, after the late Jacques Chirac, to be convicted of corruption. Prosecutors persuaded the judges that Sarkozy had offered to secure a plum job in Monaco for judge Gilbert Azibert in return for confidential information about an inquiry into allegations that he had accepted illegal payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign. This came to light, they said, while they were wiretapping conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog after Sarkozy left office, in relation to another investigation into alleged Libyan financing of the same campaign. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #8 What the Dems tend to do to Trump. |
| Posted by: Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2021-03-01 19:42 |
| #7 All that aside, Al Ahram reports Sarkozy may not spend any time in prison, however. Two years of his sentence were suspended, and Mee said she was open to him staying out of prison tagged with an electronic bracelet for the remaining year, although that decision rests with another judge. It does seem a bit odd that the investigation of his 2007 misbehaviour, which may or may not be any different from how his leftwing predecessors did things, was not begun until the year after his successor was sworn in. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2021-03-01 16:52 |
| #6 The deciding factor in his conviction was the word 'conservative'. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2021-03-01 16:41 |
| #5 Still don't know why they colluded to commit that particular crime. Moammar Qadaffy openly threatened to open the gates to migrants heading to Europe from Africa and beyond if they didn’t give him whatever silly thing he wanted at that moment. The fact that without him the gates opened anyway is secondary to the threat. Could they have handled it better? Absolutely, both then and afterward. But the little colonel seriously misjudged the men and the moment — President George W. Bush would not have made the same call. As for the handholding, it’s clearly a dominance behaviour by the man who held the keys to a large portion of Europe’s petroleum imports. Which may have played into their eagerness to get back at him. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2021-03-01 13:18 |
| #4 Operation Arab Spring. Install a bloc of MoBro organized leaders across African Mediterranean and Levant who would be sympathetic to Erdagon policies. In addition, they make money selling weapons and logistics to McCain's Heroes, nevermind the back-scratching and You Owe Me Ones of a large chunk of natural resources and a major sea trade route. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2021-03-01 12:37 |
| #3 Scratch a politician and you'll find a criminal. They're attracted to politics for some reason. |
| Posted by: jpal 2021-03-01 12:12 |
| #2 It's not that I'm all that sympathetic for Q'Daffy. I just think it takes a special kind of sociopath to stand there holding hands and smiling with a guy one day and next day sending warplanes to bomb his country, not to mention the damage it did and is still doing to Libyans and their neighbors including France. And yes, I put Baraq Obama and David Cameron in the same category with Monsieur Sarkozy. Still don't know why they colluded to commit that particular crime. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2021-03-01 12:05 |
| #1 Can't think of a better place for that bastard than the Bastille. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2021-03-01 11:19 |