Overview

• The Paris criminal court found Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of criminal association for allowing close aides to pursue financial support from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
• Judges issued a mandat de dépôt ordering incarceration, with execution deferred for a few days pending formal notification by the financial prosecutor’s office.
• Sarkozy was acquitted of passive corruption, receiving misappropriated public funds, and illegal campaign financing, and he was fined €100,000.
• Former aides Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux were convicted, including counts of influence peddling and passive corruption for Guéant and criminal association for Hortefeux.
• Sarkozy said he will appeal and declared his innocence, while key businessman witness Ziad Takieddine, long central to the case, died in Beirut days earlier.