What fate will justice reserve this Wednesday for Nicolas Sarkozy? Two years after an unprecedented conviction for a former head of state, the Paris Court of Appeal will deliver its verdict in the so-called “Bismuth” case, against the former president, his historic lawyer and a former senior magistrate.
The former President of the Republic will be present for the delivery of the decision scheduled from 9 a.m., according to concordant sources. At first instance, on March 1, 2021, the former tenant of the Élysée Palace was sentenced to three years in prison, including one year, for corruption and influence peddling. This unprecedented sanction aroused the ire of the Sarkozy camp, which shouted haro on the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), the latter denying himself of “doing politics”.
Nicolas Sarkozy claims to be innocent
Nicolas Sarkozy, who never ceased to proclaim his innocence, immediately appealed: on the first day of this new trial, December 5, 2022, he claimed to have come “to defend his flouted honor” and ensured that he had ” never corrupt anyone”.
At the end of the proceedings, contrary to the first instance, the prosecution did not request a prison sentence against him. While speaking of a case “of unprecedented gravity during the Fifth Republic”, the general prosecutor’s office requested three years in prison fully suspended for the three defendants. The public prosecutor also demanded a ban on civil rights for five years for Nicolas Sarkozy and Gilbert Azibert, as well as a ban on practicing the profession of lawyer during the same period for Me Herzog.
This Wednesday’s decision is expected when the former right-wing strongman will be retried on appeal in the fall in the “Bygmalion” case, and he is under threat of a third trial: the PNF Thursday demanded his referral to corrections in the case of suspicions of Libyan financing of his presidential campaign in 2007. This legal file, which also involves three of his former ministers, is also indirectly at the origin of the eavesdropping matter.
An unofficial line in the name of “Paul Bismuth”
At the end of 2013, the investigating judges in charge of the investigation into suspicions of Libyan corruption decided to “connect” the two lines of Nicolas Sarkozy. They then discover the existence of a third, unofficial line. Purchased on January 11, 2014 under the identity of “Paul Bismuth”, it is dedicated to exchanges between the former president and his lawyer Thierry Herzog.
Their sometimes flowery telephone conversations, broadcast for the first time during the second trial, are at the heart of the case. For the prosecution, these wiretaps reveal a corruption pact made with Gilbert Azibert, then general counsel at the Court of Cassation. The lawyers for the defendants claim, on the other hand, that these wiretaps are illegal, because they believe they undermine the secrecy of exchanges between a lawyer and his client.