Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy has asserted that his period of incarceration has been “draining” and an “ordeal” as he was present via remote connection at a judicial proceeding regarding his request to serve his sentence at home.
The former leader, dressed in a navy blue suit, appeared on camera from prison on Monday, positioned at a desk with his legal representatives beside him. He told the court: “I want to pay tribute to all the correctional officers, who are exceptionally humane, and who have eased this difficult situation – because it is a nightmare.”
The former president was admitted to La Santé prison in Paris on 21 October, after being handed a half-decade imprisonment for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain funds for his election bid from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
He has appealed against the verdict, but the court ruled that because of the “exceptional gravity” of his conviction, he had to go to prison while the appeals process took its course.
Sarkozy, who was France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be incarcerated.
Sarkozy stated to the judges from prison: “I was completely unaware or intention to ask Mr Gaddafi for any kind of financing … I will never confess to something I didn’t do … I could not have foreseen that at this stage of life, I’d be in prison. It’s an challenge that has been forced upon me. I confess it’s difficult, it’s extremely challenging. It has an impact on any prisoner because it’s gruelling.”
He said he would not attempt to enter into contact with any accused individuals or testifiers in the case. He declared: “I’m French, I am patriotic, my family is in France. This ordeal has caused them pain a lot.”
Sarkozy’s lawyer Jean-Michel Darrois, positioned beside him in the remote connection facility, stated: “Being in isolation has been extremely difficult for him.” He commented on Sarkozy: “He’s a strong, robust and brave man and this imprisonment has caused him great suffering.”
In court, a different legal representative, Christophe Ingrain, who had seen him daily, said Sarkozy would be safer out of prison than inside. “He has received threats against his life, has heard screaming at night and the emergency response in a neighbouring cell when a prisoner self-harmed,” he said.
The state prosecutor Damien Brunet asked that Sarkozy’s request for release be approved. The court will announce its decision on Monday afternoon.
The former president has been held in solitary confinement for his own security, in an individual cell of about 97 square feet, with his own shower and toilet. Two bodyguards are occupying a neighbouring cell to ensure his safety.
Accounts suggested that he had been consuming solely yogurt in prison as he was concerned any food might have been contaminated. He had been offered the facilities to cook for himself but refused this.
His online presence last week shared a recording of numerous correspondences, cards and parcels it said had been sent to him, including a collection, a chocolate bar and a volume. “No letter will go unanswered,” his account declared. “The final chapter has not yet been determined.”
Sarkozy brought with him a biography of Jesus as well as The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas’s novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but breaks out to seek retribution.
During Sarkozy’s three-month trial, the state attorney had told the court that Sarkozy entered into a “Faustian pact of corruption with one of the most unspeakable dictators of the last three decades.
The accused denied wrongdoing and said he had not been involved in a criminal conspiracy to obtain campaign finances from Libya.
He was found not guilty of three distinct accusations of dishonesty, misuse of Libyan public funds and illegal election campaign funding. After the state prosecutor also appealed against these not guilty verdicts, Sarkozy will be judged again on all the charges next year, including criminal conspiracy.
Although the allegations of a clandestine financial agreement with the Libyan regime formed the most significant legal case Sarkozy had encountered, he had already been found guilty in two different proceedings and stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Légion d’honneur.
Sarkozy had previously become the initial ex-leader forced to wear an monitoring device after being convicted in a separate case of dishonesty and influence peddling. In that situation, he was given a 12-month sentence but was able to complete it with an electronic tag attached to his leg. He wore the tag for a quarter year before being granted conditional release.
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