By Peter Allen

Copyright metro

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Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been jailed for five years over a ‘criminal conspiracy’ plot involving some $50million in laundered cash from Colonel Gaddafi.

Judges sitting at the Paris Correctional Court ruled that the cash from the late Libyan dictator helped Sarkozy, now 70, with his electioneering.

It followed a three-month trial that ended in April, and which also involved 11 other defendants, including three of Sarkozy’s former ministers.

Sarkozy was acquitted of ‘receiving stolen public funds’ and ‘passive corruption’.

Nicolas Sarkozy (L) greets Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (R) at Palais Elysee in 2007.(Picture: EPA)

But he has been handed the maximum sentence possible for conspiring with former ministers including ex-chief of staff, Claude Guéant, now 80, who was found guilty of ‘passive bribery, forgery, and influence peddling.’

Any appeal by Sarkozy will not alter his forthcoming prison sentence, said the Judge.

He will instead be given up to a month to prepare for life in a cell, so was free to go home today.

He will also have to pay a fine of €100,000 (£87,000), while the date for the start of his jail term is being set.

Guéant was sentenced to six years in prison, but the court took into account the 80-year-old’s ill health, which was ‘incompatible with incarceration.’

Guéant was also fined Euro 250,000, while Brice Hortefeux, another former Sarkozy minister, was sentenced to two years wearing an electronic bracelet.

The historic judgment against a former President of France follows Judge Nathalie Gavarino saying Sarkozy’s crimes were ‘exceptionally serious’.

She ruled that Sarkozy was guilty of having ‘allowed his close associates to act with a view to obtaining financial support from the Libyan regime’.

It is the first time that a former French head of state has been found guilty of trying to use foreign money in such a manner.

Brice Hortefeux, 67 and another senior Sarkozy minister, were also found guilty of ‘criminal conspiracy’.

Prosecutors proved that Sarkozy’s ‘closest aides’ used the money from Muammar Gaddafi to fund his election campaign in 2007.

Sarkozy was dressed in a dark business suit and tie, when he heard the verdict read out.

He briefly bowed his head, but otherwise remained silent, as family members looked ashen-faced.

They included his third wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, 57, who was wearing dark glasses, as well as Sarkozy’s three adult sons from a previous marriage.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in court with Carla Bruni for his corruption verdict (Credits: REUTERS)

Throughtout the trial, Sarkozy had blamed ‘liars and crooks’ for the accusations, while denying that the cash was used to fund his election to head of state in 2007.

‘You will never find a single cent from Libya in the campaign,’ Sarkozy insisted.

But prosecutors proved he had a ‘corruption pact’ with Gaddafi, who led Libya up until his assassination in 2011.

Evidence included a note from the late Lebanese arms dealer Zaid Takieddine – who is a relative of George Clooney’s wife, Amy Clooney – saying he regularly delivered cash to Sarkozy aides in suitcases.

Takieddine was found dead in Beirut two days ago, at the age of 75, and was allegedly the principal middleman in the transfer of laundered cash.

Takieddine was a defendant in the trial, but was on the run in Lebanon, which does not extradite its own citizens.

It was alleged that Sarkozy accepted around $50million from oil-rich Libya in all.

In turn, the North African country wanted to get rid of its pariah status after being held responsible for atrocities such as the Lockerbie Bombing, which saw 270 killed when PanAm Flight 103 was brought down over Scotland in 1988.

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Sarkozy has already been definitively convicted of bribing a judge in a separate case, and of illegal campaign funding in another one.

Carla Bruni, is, meanwhile, accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko’ – a complex and illegal plan to try to keep her husband out of jail.

She has been charged with a range of corruption offences, including ‘witness tampering in an organised gang’, and could be imprisoned for a up to 10 years if found guilty in a separate trial.

Like her husband, Ms Bruni denies any wrongdoing.

Sarkozy has also been forced to wear an electronic tag, while under house arrest, but has never done any cell time.

Jean-François Bohnert, head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said a 10 year investigation led to Sarkozy appearing in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court over the Gaddafi allegations.

‘The corruption pact was designed to improve relations with Libya,’ said Mr Bohnert.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) and Libyan leader Gaddafi pose during the signature of 10 billion euros of trade contracts between the two countries(Picture: AFP)

The PNF alleged that Sarkozy first requested financing during a visit to Libya when he was France’s Interior Minister in 2005.

Within a few months of his election in 2007, Sarkozy invited Gaddafi to Paris for a state visit and praised him as a great friend and ‘Brother Leader’.

This was while Libya was still being viewed as a pariah state because of the Lockerbie bombing.

The assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy in 1984 was also still causing outrage, especially as no-one was ever brought to justice for it.

Gaffafi’s head of military security and brother-in-law, Abdallah Senoussi, had also been found guilty in absentia of an attack of a French DC-10 plane which left 170 dead.

The financing case was aided by the Mediapart investigative news site, which in 2012 published a document signed by Libya’s intelligence chief which apparently proved the equivalent of £42million had been paid to Sarkozy.

Sarkozy insisted that the contract was a fake, but it was later ruled it can be used as evidence.

Carla Bruni-Sarkoz is accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko (Picture: REUTERS)

It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force jets led the mass bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob.

David Cameron was British Prime Minister at the time, and visited Libya with Sarkozy.

There have been claims that Sarkozy wanted his old ally Gaddafi dead because of his potential to produce incriminating evidence.

Sarkozy has already become France’s first ex-president to be tried for alleged crimes carried out in office.

Sarkozy’s conservative predecessor as President of France, the late Jacques Chirac, received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption, but this related to his time as Mayor of Paris.

The last French head of state to go to a prison cell was Marshall Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.

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