The request of the lawyers and that of the prosecutor’s office who had urged that the former French president be released under judicial supervision was accepted: Sarkozy leaves the penitentiary after 20 days
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PARIS – The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled the release of Nicolas Sarkozy from prisonaccepting the request of his lawyers to which the prosecutor had not opposed. The former president will be able to leave prison todayma under judicial controlawaiting the appeal process scheduled for next March.
He will not be able to travel abroad, and among other limitations on freedom there will be that of do not come into contact with other convictsnamely the former collaborator ministers Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, and also with “the acting Minister of Justice”, Gérald Darmanin, who had caused much controversy by visiting him in prison. Sarkozy will return home today, to the Villa Montmorency in Paristogether with his wife Carla Bruni.
The judges don’t they spoke out at the bottom of the dossier, but only on the need or otherwise to keep Sarkozysentenced in the first instance to a five-year sentence in prison. The Court of Appeal considered that the absence of danger of escape and repetition of the crime prevailed over the seriousness of the facts. “Our work now is to prepare the appeal process,” said lawyer Christophe Ingrain.
After 20 days of detention in the Santé prisonNicolas Sarkozy saw his release request examined by the Paris Court of Appeal yesterday morning. His wife Carla Bruni, the Filters and Jean and Jean Fracer Francis Sarkozy was present in aulaon the île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, to support it. After the intervention of the lawyers, who have underlined the “suffering” caused by detention to the former president and his loved ones, Sarkozy spoke via videoconference from prison, after being convicted by the Paris criminal court last September 25 of “criminal association” in the case of the Libyan financing of his presidential campaign in 2007.
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The president emeritus, French head of state from 2007 to 2012, now 70 years olddescribed thelife in prison as “exhausting”. «I scrupulously responded to all the invitations. I never imagined I would wait 70 years to learn about prison. This test was imposed on me, I lived it. It’s hard, it’s very hardit certainly is for all prisoners,” he said, paying tribute to the penitentiary staff, “who made this nightmare bearable”. The president of the court asked him to list his professional activities to understand whether these justified travel abroad. “I have two main professional activities, I am a lawyer and, secondly, I am a lecturer, that is, since 2008 I have been invited to give conferences and speeches all over the world,” replied Nicolas Sarkozy, specifying that his stays generally did not exceed two days.
During the hearing the attorney general did not oppose the release, but asked for “strict judicial control”. “I would like the court to be convinced of one thing – added Sarkozy -: I never had the crazy idea of asking Gaddafi for any financing”, he assured. «I will never confess to something I didn’t do. I love my country, my family is in France and I fight for the truth to triumph.”
«It is detention that constitutes a threat to Nicolas Sarkozy, not the other way around»underlined Christophe Ingrain, one of his lawyers, observing that for safety reasons he had been “placed in isolation” and who benefited from the protection of two agents.
