Nicolas Sarkozy threatens to take corruption case to top EU rights court after three-year conviction

Nicolas Sarkozy led France from 2007 to 2012

Credit:  IAN LANGSDON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday pledged to fight to clear his name after being handed a three-year sentence for corruption, dismissing the verdict as unfair and threatening to take his case to Europe’s top rights court should he lose an appeal.

The 66-year old Right-winger gave a combative front-page interview to the newspaper Le Figaro a day after being handed a sentence of a year in jail and two years suspended for attempting to bribe a judge.

He is not expected to go to prison as the judge said she was open to him serving the rest of his term at home with an electronic bracelet.

With Sarkozy a string of other legal cases, Monday’s shock verdict appears to have torpedoed any hopes of a political comeback even though it is subject to appeal.

True to his pugnacious style, Sarkozy, who ruled France from 2007 to 2012 in a term dubbed the “hyper-presidency”, said he would no the taking the ruling lying down.

"I can’t accept being convicted for something I didn’t do," Sarkozy told Le Figaro.

The judgement was "riddled with inconsistencies", he said, adding. “It doesn’t provide any proof, but just a bunch of circumstantial evidence.”

The court found that Sarkozy had formed a “pact of corruption" with his former lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog to convince a judge, Gilbert Azibert, to obtain and share information about a legal investigation in 2014.

The crime was "particularly serious having been committed by a former president who was the guarantor of the independence of the judiciary", said the presiding judge on Monday.

"Perhaps it will be necessary to take this battle to the (Strasbourg-based) European Court of Human Rights," said Sarkozy.

"It would be painful for me to have my own country condemned, but I am ready because that would be the price of democracy.”

Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to take his case to the European court of human rights

Credit:  GONZALO FUENTES/Reuters

Sarkozy’s Right-wing allies were swift to defend him, casting him as a victim of a witch hunt by France’s recently created national financial prosecution unit.

"When some judges start to play politics, the role of lawmakers is to strongly denounce it," Guillaume Peltier, the deputy leader of Right-wing opposition party The Republicans, told LCI television.

But Eric Piolle, the Green party mayor of Grenoble, said: "Sentences must be carried out. Not enforcing sentences is the same as impunity.”

The ex-president said he spent the evening after his conviction watching the American drama series The Killing with his family.

He denied he had any intention of returning to frontline politics.

"Acquitted or not, it would change nothing politically," said Sarkozy. "I had said I wouldn’t be a candidate and I stand by that.”

Sarkozy faces three other legal cases.

One involves allegations that he received around £45 million in funding from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi towards his 2007 election campaign. He has also been charged with fraudulently overspending on his failed 2012 reelection bid. The so-called Bygmalion trial is due to start on March 17.

In January, Sarkozy was also placed under preliminary investigation for "influence peddling" over a €3 million contract with a Russian insurance company.

He denies any wrongdoing.