The public prosecutor’s office requested the release under Nicolas Sarkozy’s judicial supervision this Monday morning, while the Paris Court of Appeal on Monday morning began hearings into the former French president’s request for release. “The risk of fraudulent consultations and pressure on witnesses gives rise to calls for placing them under judicial supervision,” said Advocate General Damien Brunet, requesting that “Nicolas Sarkozy’s request was granted” to be released.
Nicolas Sarkozy has been jailed for twenty days in Santé prison in Paris after being convicted in a Libyan affair involving funding his presidential campaign. The former head of state was not removed from the hearing, which began at 9:30 am, and appeared via videoconference, offering via screen the first image in history of a former President of the Republic in prison, in a jacket, sweater and dark blue shirt. “This is difficult, very difficult, this must be experienced by every prisoner, in fact I think this is very tiring,” explained to Nicolas Sarkozy’s court his detention, which he described as “nightmare”. But he paid tribute to prison staff who “making this nightmare (…) bearable”.
“It is detention that is a threat to Nicolas Sarkozy, not the other way around”, one of his lawyers, Me Christophe Ingrain, said during Monday’s hearing. This is what deserves to happen placed in solitary confinement» in prison and benefited from the protection of two agents in custody. The board also listed different criteria that the Paris Court of Appeal must consider to decide whether to continue his detention or not. A decision will be made at 1:30 p.m.
According to article 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, further detention is only possible if this is the case“the only way” to protect evidence, to prevent pressure or consultation, to prevent leakage or recurrence, or to protect it. Otherwise, the former president should be released under court supervision, perhaps under house arrest with an electronic bracelet. If there is a green light from the court, Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, could be released immediately after the trial.
The former far-right activist was jailed less than a month after he was sentenced to five years in prison on September 25 for criminal conspiracy in a trial in Libya. A Paris criminal court found him guilty of deliberately allowing his collaborators to approach Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya to seek secret funding for his victorious presidential campaign in 2007. He immediately appealed. The unprecedented detention of the former Republican President has sparked heated debate. It is also a first in the European Union, where no former head of state has been jailed.
More information to come…
