Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has become the first ex-leader since the Second World War to go to jail. He will serve a five-year sentence for using funds from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 campaign. However, Sarkozy maintains his innocence and has appealed the conviction. He is held in isolation at La Santé prison for safety. He called his imprisonment a crushing price and a humiliation for France. Sarkozy reached at the La Santé prison in Paris on Tuesday to start his five-year sentence, where he will be kept away from all other prisoners for security reasons.
France's right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy was handed his sentence in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi to fund his electoral campaign. A Paris judge ruled that Sarkozy would start to serve time without waiting for his appeal to be heard, due to “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense”.
The former French president walked out of his home hand-in-hand with his singer wife, Carla Bruni, and left in a car escorted by police. "Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas," shouted a crowd who gathered in the road outside to show their support."An innocent man is being locked up," Sarkozy wrote earlier in a post on X. "I am not asking for any advantages or favours," he added. "The truth will prevail."
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