Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be jailed for a five-year term on 21 October. The 70-year-old former president, who will become the first French post-war leader to go to prison, will serve his sentence at La – Santé prison in Paris.
“I am not afraid of prison. I will hold my head high,” Sarkozy told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper ahead of his imprisonment.
The former president will reportedly be held in solitary confinement.
Sarkozy also told Le Figaro that he would take three books for his first week behind bars, including Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,” the story of an unjustly imprisoned man planning revenge against those who betrayed him.
In September, a court found Sarkozy-leader of France from 2007 to 2012-guilty of criminal conspiracy in a case involving the financing of his election campaign by the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi from 2005 to 2007. He was sentenced to five years in prison, including one year of probation.
Sarkozy was found not guilty on other charges in that case – embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption and campaign finance violations.
Sarkozy, 70, denied the charges throughout the trial. He has appealed the court’s decision. According to French media, a new trial is expected in the coming months.
The sentence handed down to him, however, provides for Sarkozy’s imprisonment, even in the event of an appeal.
The appeals court in Paris has up to 18 months to organise an appeal. Once imprisoned, his lawyers can petition the Court of Appeal for his release, but he will remain in custody unless the court decides otherwise.