Former French president Sarkozy sentenced to jail

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A Paris court on Monday found French former President France guilty of corruption and influence peddling and sentenced him to one year in prison and a two-year suspended sentence, AP reports.

The 66-year-old politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, was convicted for having tried to illegally obtain information from a senior magistrate in 2014 about a legal action in which he was involved.

The court said Sarkozy will be entitled to request to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet.

Sarkozy will face another trial later this month along with 13 other people on charges of illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign.

Prosecutors have requested two years of prison and a two-year suspended sentence for all three defendants over what they said was a “corruption pact.”

“No pact has ever existed,” Sarkozy told the court. “Neither in my head, nor in reality.”

“I want to be cleared of that infamy,” he added.

The trial focused on phone conversations that took place in February 2014.

At the time, investigative judges had launched an inquiry into the financing of the 2007 presidential campaign. During the investigation they incidentally discovered that Sarkozy and Herzog were communicating via secret mobile phones registered to the alias “Paul Bismuth.”

Conversations wiretapped on these phones led prosecutors to suspect Sarkozy and Herzog of promising Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about another legal case, known by the name of France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

In one of these phone calls with Herzog, Sarkozy said of Azibert : “I’ll make him move up … I’ll help him.”

In another, Herzog reminded Sarkozy to “say a word” for Azibert during a trip to Monaco.

Legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the Bettencourt case. Azibert never got the Monaco job.

Prosecutors have concluded, however, that the “clearly stated promise” constitutes in itself a corruption offense under French law, even if the promise wasn’t fulfilled.

Sarkozy vigorously denies any malicious intention.He told the court that his political life was all about “giving (people) a little help. That all it is, a little help.”

“I was 100 billion miles away from thinking we w re doing something we did not have the right to do,” he said.

Sarkozy said he did not get confidential information from Azibert.

Prosecutors believe Sarkozy was at some point informed that the secret phones were being wiretapped and that it is the reason why he did not ultimately help Azibert get the job.