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PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will serve jail time at a Paris prison from October 21, informed sources told AFP Monday, after a court last month sentenced him to five years behind bars for criminal conspiracy.
The 70-year-old, who will be the first French postwar leader and the first former head of a European Union country to go to jail, will serve time at the La Sante prison in Paris, they said.
Sarkozy, France’s leader from 2007 to 2012, was convicted in late September over a scheme for late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to fund his 2007 presidential run.
Extra security measures are expected to ensure his safety in prison, with Sarkozy possibly placed in a unit for vulnerable prisoners or held in solitary confinement.
Earlier Monday, he arrived at the financial prosecutor’s office in Paris to learn the details of his upcoming incarceration.
He arrived in a car with tinted windows, then left again three-quarters of an hour later without making a comment, AFP journalists saw.
An AFP photographer then saw him return home.
Sarkozy has denied the charges and appealed against his conviction.
The former president immediately appealed his conviction in September and a new trial is expected in the coming months.
The Paris appeals court has up to 18 months to organize it.
Once jailed, his lawyers can petition the appeals court for his release but he will remain in custody unless it decides otherwise.

‘Exceptional gravity’

During the trial, prosecutors argued Sarkozy and his aides, acting with his authority and in his name, struck a deal with Qaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious French presidential election bid two years later.
Investigators believe that in return, Qaddafi was promised help to restore his international image after the West blamed Tripoli for bombing a plane in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.
Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said the offenses were of “exceptional gravity” and therefore ordered that Sarkozy actually be incarcerated.
The court’s ruling found Sarkozy was guilty of criminal conspiracy.
But it did not follow the conclusion of prosecutors that he was the beneficiary of the illegal campaign financing.
He was acquitted on separate charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.

Legal woes

Sarkozy has faced a litany of legal problems since his mandate ended.
The country’s top court last year upheld his conviction and one-year jail sentence for graft over attempting in 2014 to secure favors from a judge.
He served three months of that time with an electronic tag earlier this year, before being granted conditional release.
Separately, he has received a one-year jail term — six months in prison with another six months suspended — for illegal financing of his 2012 campaign.
He has filed a final appeal with France’s top court, which is to issue its ruling late next month.
Sarkozy has also faced repercussions beyond the courtroom, including losing his Legion of Honour — France’s highest distinction — following the graft conviction.
Legal woes aside, the man who styled himself as the “hyper-president” while in office, still enjoys considerable influence and popularity on the right of French politics and has been known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday hailed the “extraordinary” Gaza ceasefire as bringing hope that US President Donald Trump could broker an end to the Russian invasion of his country.
“When peace is achieved for one part of the world, it brings more hope for peace in other regions,” Zelensky said on social media.
He added: “If a ceasefire and peace have been achieved for the Middle East, the leadership and determination of global actors can certainly work for us too, in Ukraine.”
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, setting off the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Tens of thousands have been killed, millions forced from their homes and much of eastern and southern Ukraine decimated.
Trump had once vowed he could end the war in a matter of hours, but despite several rounds of talks and a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, there has been no significant progress toward a peace deal.
Russia has refused multiple calls for a ceasefire and outlined hard-line demands, essentially calling for Kyiv to capitulate in exchange for peace.
The US leader has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin in recent weeks and recently said he could see Ukraine reclaiming every inch of territory seized by Russia.
Moscow’s army currently controls around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula which it captured and annexed in 2014.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also urged Trump to carry the momentum from brokering the Israel-Hamas ceasefire into efforts on Ukraine.
“We also hope that the American president will now use the influence he has exerted on the parties involved in the (Middle East) to work with us on the Russian government,” Merz said in Egypt, where he was to attend a summit of world leaders including Trump.
Merz added that he will discuss the Russia-Ukraine war settlement with Trump at the summit.