The French prosecutor’s office has demanded that former President Nicolas Sarkozy be sentenced to seven years in prison in the case of Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign, French media reported on Friday.
The agency also requested a €300,000 fine for the former head of state and the inability to be elected for five years.
The ex-president is being tried for illegal campaign financing, passive corruption, concealing embezzlement of public funds and criminal conspiracy, the report said.
Sarkozy denies any wrongdoing. The charges were brought in 2011 when a Libyan news agency and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi himself said the Libyan state had secretly channelled millions of euros to Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.
In 2012, the French research agency Mediapart published a Libyan intelligence memo that revealed a €50 million funding agreement. Sarkozy called the document a forgery and sued for libel.
In 2013, the French justice system, while investigating Sarkozy, obtained testimony from a French-Lebanese businessman, Ziyad Takieddine, who claimed to have evidence of this financing. He said he handed over three suitcases of banknotes to the French Interior Ministry, which was headed by Nicolas Sarkozy at the time. During the probe, investigators discovered a €500,000 payment from abroad to one of the bank accounts of his former campaign manager Claude Guéant.
