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PARIS: A Paris court found former French President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty on one charge but acquitted him on others Thursday in his trial for the alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign with money from the government of then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The court is still detailing its ruling and hasn’t immediately sentenced the 70-year-old Sarkozy. That step would come later in the court proceedings Thursday. Sarkozy can appeal the guilty verdict, which would suspend any sentence pending the appeal.
The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a scheme from 2005 to 2007 to finance his campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors. But it cleared him of three other charges – including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of the embezzlement of public funds.
Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was present in the courtroom, which was also filled with reporters and members of the public. Sarkozy sat in the front row of the defendant’s seats. His three adult sons were also in the room.
Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 but lost his bid for reelection in 2012, denied all wrongdoing during a three-month trial that also involved 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.
Despite multiple legal scandals that have clouded his presidential legacy, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in right-wing politics in France and in entertainment circles, by virtue of his marriage to Bruni-Sarkozy.
Alleged Libya financing
The accusations trace their roots to 2011, when a Libyan news agency and Qaddafi himself said the Libyan state had secretly funneled millions of euros into Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign.
In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it said was a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a €50 million funding agreement. Sarkozy denounced the document as a forgery and sued for defamation.
French magistrates later said that the memo appeared to be authentic, though no conclusive evidence of a completed transaction was presented at the three-month Paris trial.
Investigators also looked into a series of trips to Libya made by people close to Sarkozy when he served as interior minister from 2005 and 2007, including his chief of staff.
In 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart that he had delivered suitcases filled with cash from Tripoli to the French Interior Ministry under Sarkozy. He later retracted his statement.
That reversal is now the focus of a separate investigation into possible witness tampering. Both Sarkozy and his wife were handed preliminary charges for involvement in alleged efforts to pressure Takieddine. That case has not gone to trial yet.
Takieddine, who was one of the co-defendants, died on Tuesday in Beirut, his lawyer Elize Arfi said. He was 75. He had fled to Lebanon in 2020 and did not attend the trial.
Sarkozy was tried on charges of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, concealment of the embezzlement of public funds and criminal association. Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy had knowingly benefited from what they described as a “corruption pact” with Qaddafi’s government.
Libya’s longtime dictator was toppled and killed in an uprising in 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.
Sarkozy denounced a ‘plot’
The trial shed light on France’s back-channel talks with Libya in the 2000s, when Qaddafi was seeking to restore diplomatic ties with the West. Before that, Libya was considered a pariah state.
Sarkozy has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and reliant on forged evidence. During the trial, he denounced a “plot” he said was staged by “liars and crooks” including the “Qaddafi clan.”
He suggested that the allegations of campaign financing were retaliation for his call – as France’s president – for Qaddafi’s removal.
Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to push for military intervention in Libya in 2011, when Arab Spring pro-democracy protests swept the Arab world.
“What credibility can be given to such statements marked by the seal of vengeance?” Sarkozy asked in comments during the trial.
Stripped of the Legion of Honor
In June, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal – France’s highest award – after his conviction in a separate case.
Earlier, he was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling for trying to bribe a magistrate in 2014 in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.
Sarkozy was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one year. He was granted a conditional release in May due to his age, which allowed him to remove the electronic tag after he wore it for just over three months.
In another case, Sarkozy was convicted last year of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 reelection bid. He was accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount and was sentenced to a year in prison, of which six months were suspended.
Sarkozy has denied the allegations. He has appealed that verdict to the highest Court of Cassation, and that appeal is pending.

Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced leaders who had recognized a Palestinian state, as he headed to the United States on Thursday for White House talks and an address to the UN General Assembly.
His remarks came three days after France led a special summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly, which saw a slew of Western governments recognize the State of Palestine against the backdrop of the nearly two-year Gaza war.
Netanyahu is due to address the assembly on Friday.
“At the General Assembly, I will speak our truth — the truth of the citizens of Israel, the truth of the (Israeli) soldiers, the truth of our nation,” Netanyahu said at Ben Gurion airport ahead of his departure, according to a statement from his office.
“I will condemn those leaders who, instead of condemning the murderers, rapists and burners of children, want to give them a state in the heart of Israel. This will not happen.”
On Wednesday, Netanyahu said the recent flurry of recognitions of Palestinian statehood, including by Britain and France, did “not obligate Israel in any way,” calling it a “shameful capitulation of some leaders to Palestinian terror.”
On Thursday, he said he would meet with US President Trump for a fourth time in Washington.
“I will discuss with him the great opportunities that our victories have brought, as well as our need to complete the goals of the war: to bring back all our hostages, to defeat Hamas and to expand the circle of peace that has opened up to us,” Netanyahu said.
US envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he expected a breakthrough related to Gaza in the coming days, saying Trump had presented a plan to Arab and Islamic countries.
“We presented what we call the Trump 21-point plan for peace in the Mideast and Gaza,” Witkoff said.
“I think it addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region,” he said on the sidelines of the General Assembly, without elaborating on the 21 points.
“We’re hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days we’ll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough.”
An Israeli air strike on a home where displaced people had taken refuge in central Gaza killed at least 11 people on Thursday, the territory’s civil defense spokesperson told AFP.
In recent weeks the military has been carrying out a ground assault on Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban center, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.