Imprisoned former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is about to walk free later today after a three-week prison stint.
The 70-year-old begged judges at an appeal hearing today to release him from ‘a nightmare’ following three weeks in La Santé, the high-security jail in Paris.
After his release, he’ll wear an electronic tag while living at his £5million home together with his third wife, the previous supermodel and pop singer, Carla Bruni, 57, and their 14-year-old daughter, Giulia Sarkozy.
Sarkozy has spent three weeks of a five-year sentence inside, after being found guilty of plotting to take thousands and thousands in laundered money from the late Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The Public Prosecutor emphasised ‘the intense seriousness of the offences and the severity of the sentence’ but stated that the Code of Criminal Procedure allowed for Sarkozy’s early release.
Sarkozy has been continually threatened by other prisoners in La Santé, and has been suffering unwell health while surviving on a food plan of yoghurt.
He told the court: ‘It’s hard, it’s very hard. I need everyone to be convinced of 1 thing – I never had the crazy idea of asking Mr Gaddafi for any funding in anyway. I won’t ever confess to something I didn’t do.’
Sarkozy described himself as a model of behaviour, and said he needs to be let loose for good behaviour alone.
‘I scrupulously responded to all summonses. I never imagined I might need to wait 70 years to experience prison,’ he said.
‘This ordeal was imposed upon me – I endured it. It’s hard, it’s very hard. I really like my country, my family is in France, I fight for the reality to prevail.’
Sarkozy also thanked prison staff, saying they ‘showed exceptional humanity and made this nightmare bearable.’
Sarkozy is the primary French head of state to be jailed for the reason that end of the Second World War.
He was found guilty of accepting thousands and thousands in illegal money from Colonel Gaddafi, in order to win office for five years, between 2007 and 2012.
Beyond his five-year term, he has also been convicted of two earlier offences, while facing further criminal enquiries.
Those that have frolicked at La Santé – which implies Health, include notorious terrorists and armed robbers comparable to Carlos the Jackal (Illich Ramírez Sanchez) and armed robber, Jacques Mesrine.
He’s now the primary French head of state to go to a jail cell since Marshall Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.
Carla Bruni herself was accused of being a part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko’ – a fancy and illegal plan to try to maintain her husband out of jail.
She has been charged with a spread of corruption offences, including ‘witness tampering in an organised gang’, and could possibly be imprisoned for as much as 10 years if found guilty in a separate trial.
Like her husband, Ms Bruni denies any wrongdoing.
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