Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said his time in prison was “grueling” and a “nightmare” as he appeared in a video hearing on his plea to be released from home.
Sarkozy, dressed in a navy blue suit, appeared on camera from prison on Monday, sitting at a table with his lawyers beside him. He told the court:
Sarkozy entered La Santé prison in Paris on 21 October, after a Paris court gave him a five-year sentence for criminal acquisition of Criminal funds for his regime Dice Dictator Criminal Dictator Maddafi Gaddafi.
He appealed against the verdict, but the judges ruled out the “extraordinary gravity” of his conviction as the appeals process got under way.
Sarkozy, who served as the hivewing president of France between 2007 and 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to go to bars.
Sarkozy told the court from prison: “I don’t have any idea or intention to ask Gl Gaddafi for any kind of spending… I will be fished for anything that I am imprisoned.
He said he would not try to talk to other accused or witnesses in the case. He said: “I’m French, I love my country, my family is in France. This hardship raised them.”
Sarkozy’s lawyer Jean-Michel Darrois, who sat next to him in the prison video link, said: “Isolation is too much for him.” He said of Sarkozy: “He is a strong, strong and courageous man and this restriction has made him suffer a lot.”
In court, Sarkozy’s lawyers, Christophe Ingrin, who visited him every day, said that Sarkozy was more energetic at night and the urgent interference with a neighbor’s own cell. “
Minister of State Damien Brunet asked Sarkozy to be released. The court will announce the decision on Monday afternoon.
When he entered prison three weeks ago, Sarkozy organized a long exit from the stage that came from his house in the west, Carla Brunizy, who bowed to many supporters in the streets outside. Bruni-Sarkozy was in court for the release of the request hearing on Monday morning, along with Sarkozy’s two eldest sons.
Sarkozy was held in isolation for his own security, in an individual cell of about 9 square meters, with his own shower and toilet. Two bodyguards occupied a neighboring cell to ensure his safety. The Country of France every week, The pointreported that he ate only yoghurts in prison as he was afraid of any food that would be spat. He was given facilities to cook for himself but refused it, the magazine reported, citing anonymous sources.
Sarkozy’s Social Media Account last week posted a video of piles of letters, postcards and packages said to have been sent to him, including a colloge, a book of chocolates and a book. “No letter goes unanswered,” his account announced. “The end of the story has not yet been written.”
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Sarkozy took a biography of Jesus as well as the count of Monte Cristo, Monte’s novel by Alexandre Dumas in which an innocent man is sentenced to prison but escapes to take revenge.
During Sarkozy’s three-month trial, Public Prosecutors told the court that Sarkozy had entered into a “Fustaian Pact of Corruption with the most unspeakable dictator of the last 30 years”.
Sarkozy has denied wrongdoing and said he was not part of a criminal conspiracy to seek election funding from Libya.
He was acquitted of three separate charges of corruption, misuse of Libyan public funds and illegal election campaign financing. After the state prosecutor also appealed against the claims, Sarkozy was retried on all charges next year, including criminal conspiracy.
Although the allegations of a secret campaign funding pact with the Libyan regime formed the biggest corruption trial Sarkozy had faced, he had already been convicted in two separate cases and stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.
Sarkozy previously became the first French president to be forced to wear an electronic tag after being convicted in a separate case of illegally trying to fix favors in a judgment. In this case, he was given a one-year term in prison but was able to serve it with an electronic tag worn around the ankle. He wore the tag for three months before being granted conditional release.