His lawyer immediately announced that he would appeal. And for good reason. This Friday, the Basse-Terre court went beyond the requisitions of the public prosecutor by sentencing the president of the Guadeloupe region Ary Chalus to 15 months in prison, suspended. He also received two years of ineligibility for breach of trust and exceeding the electoral spending limit during the campaign for the Regional elections in 2015. He won the election with 57% of the votes, ahead of his socialist opponent Victorin Lurel.
Ary Chalus (ex-Renaissance), 62, will also be banned from leading an association for three years. If the decision was confirmed, the elected official would also have to pay a fine of 25,000 euros, the Basse-Terre court said.
The president “surprised” by these revelations
The investigation was initially opened against Lucette Michaux-Chevry, former president of the South Basse-Terre agglomeration, who died in September 2021. She was suspected of having had numerous people hired by the community to carry out, in this area of the Guadeloupean archipelago, the countryside of Ary Chalus. The investigations had led to several dozen invoices linked to the campaign for a total amount of more than 160,000 euros, addressed to an association of which the elected official was the president.
During the hearings, the respondent said he was “surprised” and repeated that he had not been informed of the campaign accounts being kept. His lawyer denounced a “political coup”. Three former collaborators of the regional president were also sentenced.