The prosecution has called for jail sentences to be handed out in the Paris corruption trial featuring Nicolas Sarkozy. But in their closing speeches lawyers acting for the former president and his fellow accused, lawyer and close friend Thierry Herzog and retired judge Gilbert Azibert, argued that there was no evidence at all to back the prosecution's claims of corruption and influence peddling. Judgement in the trial has been reserved until March 1st 2021. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan reports from the end of an historic trial, the first in which a former French president has been tried on corruption charges.
The prosecution has called for Nicolas Sarkozy to be given a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, in the closing stages of the former president's corruption trial in Paris. Prosecutors also called for a similar sentence for Sarkozy's friend and lawyer Thierry Herzog and retired judge Gilbert Azibert. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan was in court to hear the prosecution sum up their case.
The 65-year-old former president is accused of having tried to illegally obtain information from a senior magistrate in 2014 about an investigation involving him.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy has given evidence at the corruption trial in Paris where he is accused of trying to bribe a senior judge in return for confidential judicial information. The ex-head of state was full of anger and indignation at the allegations that have been levelled against him. “I swear to you, the idea that we were doing something we shouldn't could not have been further from my mind!” he told the courtroom. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan was in court to hear Nicolas Sarkozy proclaim his innocence on all charges.
When Nicolas Sarkozy was being questioned by judges over claims that his 2007 president election campaign was part-funded by the Libyan regime, he agreed to hand over his official diaries from that period. However, Mediapart understands that his lawyer has now told the judges that the former president is unable to provide any of them. This sudden about-face comes right in the middle of Nicolas Sarkozy's ongoing corruption trial, in which those very same diaries play a prominent role. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
