Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been granted early release from prison, three weeks into a five-year prison sentence.
He will be subject to strict judicial supervision and prohibited from leaving France.
On 21 October the former President of the Center-tama, 70, was sentenced to five years for consulting his 2007 election campaign from the late Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
His lawyers then filed a motion seeking his release, pending an appeals trial next March.
Sarkozy may be released from LA Santé prison as early as Monday evening.
Speaking to a Paris court via video link, Sarkozy described his time in solitary confinement as “grueling” and “a nightmare”.
Public Proveniser Damien Broket recommended that Sarkozy’s request for release be granted, but that the former president is prohibited from contacting other Witnesses in the so-called “Libya Dossier”.
Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, told the Court via video link that he had not had the “crazy idea” of asking for the money and declared that he had not done it.
Sarkozy will also be paid by the prison staff who spent his time in prison “humanely”. “They show extraordinary humanity,” he said.
Sarkozy’s wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and two of the former court’s sons were in court to support him.
Sarkozy is the first French ex-leader to be put behind bars since World War Two NAZI Courtination leader Philippe Péfeved for Beason in 1945.
Since entering prison, Sarkozy has been held in a cell in the isolation wing. Two bodyguards were stationed in adjacent cells.
“The former president of the Republic has the right to protection because of his condition,” said Interior Minisentez Nuñez said in October, adding that “it is clear a threat against him.”
Sarkozy was president from 2007-2012. Since he left the office, he was dogged by criminal questions and for many months had to wear an ankle in December for trying to bribe a similar case.