Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to three years jail on corruption charges

A French court found Sarkozy guilty of trying to bribe a Magistrate by offering him a prestigious job in return for information about a criminal case against him. The court suspended two years of the sentence and allowed him to serve a year at home with an electronic tag.

Credit: Reuters

New Delhi: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to three years in jail for corruption and influence-peddling on Monday (March 1).

A French court found him guilty of trying to bribe a Magistrate by offering him a prestigious job in return for information about a criminal case against him.

Sarkozy, however, will not go to prison as the court suspended two years of the sentence and allowed him to serve a year at home with an electronic tag.

The 66-year-old is the first former French president to receive a custodial sentence, reported BBC.

Along with Sarkozy, his former lawyer and the Magistrate involved in the bribery also received similar sentences. The three re expected to appeal against the order.

The judge observed that Sarkozy knew what he was doing was wrong and that his actions and those of his lawyer had given the public "a very bad image of justice".

The crimes were specified as influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy.

The case centred on conversations between the Magistrate involved Gilbert Azibert, and Thierry Herzog, Sarkozy's then-lawyer, which were taped by police in 2014.

The investigators were looking into claims that Sarkozy had accepted illicit payments from the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign.

Sarkozy is also due to go on trial in a separate case that relates to the so-called Bygmalion affair. Sarkozy is accused of having fraudulently overspent in his 2012 presidential campaign.