#nicolas-sarkozy

#nicolas-sarkozy

Intimidation and death threats against judges are absolutely unacceptable in a democracy,

French authorities said Friday they have launched two investigations into threats targeting the presiding judge in the conspiracy trial of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was jailed for five years. The magistrates' union said the judge, Nathalie Gavarino, had received death threats and messages threatening her with "serious violence" in the wake of Thursday's verdict. A special anti-online hate task force will lead the investigations.

On the morning of May 13, 1993, a man dressed in black and rigged with explosives entered a daycare center in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris, and took 20 children and their teacher hostage. In exchange for their release, the kidnapper demanded 100 million francs (about $17 million). But the town's mayor, a young and ambitious politician named Nicolas Sarkozy, decided to ignore the police's advice and go in to negotiate with the abductor.

When a Paris court handed Nicolas Sarkozy a five-year prison sentence on Thursday for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to get election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi it was a historic moment for modern France. The rightwing Sarkozy, who served as president between 2007 and 2012, was known in office not just for his hard line on immigration and national identity but for championing harsher sentencing for delinquents.

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a trial in which he and aides were accused of making an alleged corruption pact with the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to receive funding for the 2007 French presidential election campaign. But Sarkozy was was acquitted of three other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign financing.

Prosecutors argued that the former conservative leader and his aides devised a pact with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund Sarkozy's victorious presidential election bid two years later. They also requested that the 70-year-old pay a fine of €300,000 and be handed a five-year ban on holding office. Even if convicted, Sarkozy is likely to appeal, and it is doubtful that he would be sent to prison immediately.