Sarkozy Wants to Go to the European Court of Human Rights

Nicolas Sarkozy announces resistance: The convicted French ex-president wants to take all possible means against his prison sentence – and if necessary, bring his home country to the court in Strasbourg.

 

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to challenge his sentencing to prison at all levels. The 66-year-old told the newspaper “Le Figaro” that he would go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if necessary.

A Paris criminal court sentenced Sarkozy to three years in prison on Monday for bribing a senior judicial officer, two of which were suspended.

Sarkozy has announced an appeal against the verdict. “I do not accept to be judged for something that I did not do,” he told the “Figaro”. It would be painful for him to have his own country tried by the Strasbourg court of the Council of Europe, he added. “But I’m ready for it because it would be the price of democracy.”

According to the Paris judges, Sarkozy had bribed an attorney general at the Supreme Court in 2014 to obtain information about an ongoing investigation against him. Sarkozy was France’s President from 2007 to 2012.

It is considered unlikely that he will have to serve the prison sentence. The court had called house arrest with an electronic ankle cuff as possible.