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French ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy stands trial for corruption
By Associated PressNovember 23, 2020 | 11:00am | Updated
PARIS — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy went on trial Monday on charges of corruption and influence peddling in a phone-tapping scandal, a first for the 65-year-old politician who has faced several other judicial investigations since leaving office in 2012.
Sarkozy is being accused of having tried to illegally obtain information from a magistrate about an investigation involving him in 2014.
He stands trial in a Paris court along with his lawyer Thierry Herzog, 65, and the magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, 73. They face a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a maximum fine of $1.2 million. They deny any wrongdoing.
Sarkozy and Herzog are suspected of promising Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about an investigation into suspected illegal financing of the 2007 presidential campaign by France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Sarkozy arrived at the court surrounded by his lawyers and bodyguards, in the presence of dozens of journalists. The Paris court has been placed under high security as hearings in the case, scheduled until Dec. 10, are taking place at the same time as another key trial — that of the 2015 attacks at the Charlie Hebdo offices and a kosher supermarket.
Sarkoy’s trial started Monday afternoon in the absence of Azibert. His lawyer told news broadcaster BFM TV that he intends to request the postponement of the trial, arguing his client’s bad health makes it risky for him to travel and appear in court amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2014, Sarkozy and Herzog used secret mobile phones — registered to the alias name of “Paul Bismuth” — to be be able to have private talks as they feared their conversations were being tapped.
Sarkozy and Herzog explained that they bought the phones to avoid being targeted by illegal phone tapping. Investigative judges, however, suspect they actually wanted to avoid being tapped by investigators.
Judges have found that discussions between Sarkozy and his lawyer suggested they had knowledge that judicial investigators at the time tapped their conversations on their official phones — they mentioned “judges listening.”
Sarkozy argued that he never intervened to help Azibert, who never got the job and retired in 2014.
Investigative judges consider that as soon as a deal has been offered, it constitutes a criminal offense even if the promises haven’t been fulfilled.
Legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the Bettencourt case.
Sarkozy, a lawyer by training, pointed at judicial harassment, accusing judges of breaching lawyer-client privilege via wiretapping.
“I don’t want things that I didn’t do to be held against me. The French need to know… that I’m not a rotten person,” he told BFM TV earlier this month.
He said he was facing the trial in a “combative” mood.
Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty in 2011 of misuse of public money, breach of trust and conflict of interest and given a two-year suspended prison sentence for actions during his time as Paris mayor, before he was president from 1995 to 2007.
Sarkozy’s name has appeared for years in several other judicial investigations.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/french-ex-president-nicolas-sarkozy-stands-trial-for-corruption/