Ex-French leader Sarkozy on trial over alleged Gaddafi funds: All to know

The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began on Monday over allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal election campaign financing from the regime of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Here is all we know about the trial:

What is the trial about?

The trial of the right-wing former president and 11 other people, including former ministers, comes after a 10-year anti-corruption probe.

The court will hear allegations that the Libyan government funded Sarkozy’s election campaign in exchange for diplomatic, legal and business favours.

The 69-year-old former leader faces charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of embezzlement of public funds and criminal association. If convicted, Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison.

In October 2023, French judges charged Sarkozy with illegal witness tampering while his wife, model and singer Carla Bruni, was charged in 2024 with hiding evidence in the same case.

The case first came to light in March 2011, when a Libyan news agency reported that the Gaddafi government had financed Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.

In 2014, news outlet French24 reported that in a recorded interview with broadcaster France 3 TV from 2011, Gaddafi reportedly said “Sarkozy is mentally deficient … It’s thanks to me that he became president … We gave him the funds that allowed him to win.”

Al Jazeera, however, has not been able to verify the veracity of the interview or the claims attributed to Gaddafi.

In the same year, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi told Euronews that Sarkozy had taken campaign funding from Libya: “The first thing we ask of this clown is that he return the money to the Libyan people. We helped him so he could help the Libyan people, but he let us down.”

Sarkozy welcomed Gaddafi to the Elysee Palace in Paris in 2007. However, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests broke out in 2011, Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya.

In October 2011, Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces backed by NATO’s forces, bringing an end to his four decades of rule.

Sarkozy said that allegations of campaign financing by Gaddafi’s inner circle are motivated by revenge for his backing of the anti-government uprising in Libya.

In 2012, Mediapart, a French online news outlet, published a note reportedly from the Libyan secret services from December 2006. The note allegedly mentioned Gaddafi’s agreement to provide Sarkozy with 50 million euros ($52m at current rates) for campaign financing. Sarkozy claimed the document was fake, rejecting the allegations.

In 2016, French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered 5 million euros ($5.2m) in cash from Libya to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff. However, Takieddine retracted this statement in 2020.

Sarkozy’s trial will span three months and is scheduled to run until April 10. The verdict is expected at a later date.

Who is Nicolas Sarkozy?

Sarkozy, 69, was the president of France between 2007 and 2012. He retired from active politics in 2017.

He was the leader of the liberal-conservative Republicans party, then called the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). He won the 2007 election with 53 percent of the vote, beating Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party (PS).

Sarkozy has rejected the allegations of wrongdoing.

Sarkozy “is awaiting these four months of hearings with determination. He will fight the artificial construction dreamed up by the prosecution. There was no Libyan financing of the campaign,” Sarkozy’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain said in a Sunday statement, according to AFP news agency.

“We want to believe the court will have the courage to examine the facts objectively, without being guided by the nebulous theory that poisoned the investigation.”

What are the other cases against Sarkozy?

Sarkozy has been convicted in two other legal cases.

Last month, the highest court in France, the Court of Cassation, upheld a 2021 conviction against Sarkozy of bribery and influence peddling. He was sentenced to one year of house arrest and was ordered to wear an electronic bracelet over that period. Sarkozy has said he would bring this case to the European Court of Human Rights. This case was revealed through a wiretapped phone call during the Libya financing investigation.

Last year, an appeals court in Paris upheld a conviction for Sarkozy in another campaign financing case for his failed 2012 re-election bid. He lost the 2012 election to Francois Hollande from PS and was alleged to have knowingly exceeded spending limits. The court ruled that he should serve six months in prison, with another six months suspended. Sarkozy has appealed against the verdict at the Court of Cassation.

Are there other defendants?

Besides Sarkozy, there are 11 other defendants in the trial.

These include Takieddine; Claude Gueant, who is a former close aide of Sarkozy; Eric Woerth, Sarkozy’s former head of campaign financing, who now serves in parliament as a member of French President Emmanuel Macron’s party; and Brice Hortefeux, a former minister.

Takieddine fled to Lebanon in June 2020 after a French court sentenced him to five years in jail in a separate corruption case.