Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was absent this Thursday on the first day of the new trial he is facing in Paris after his conviction in March, in this case for irregular financing of his 2012 electoral campaign, in which he was defeated by François Hollande.
The process began a quarter of an hour late and with great expectation from the media in case Sarkozy finally turned up, who had also not been present at the hearing on May 17, in which it was decided to postpone the process due to the illness of the lawyer Jérôme Lavrilleux, one of the defendants and a major protagonist of some of the main revelations during the investigation.
The president of the court explained at the beginning of the hearing, during the presentation of all those who sit on the bench, that the former president had presented a memory on Wednesday, the content of which he did not give details at that time.
The former president's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had indicated on March 17 that his client would be present on the days when his case was directly addressed..
The one who was head of state between 2007 and 2012 is accused of irregular financing of his electoral campaign in the presidential elections, which in case of being convicted could mean a sentence of up to one year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros.
He is the only one of the 14 defendants who is not charged with forgery, use of false documents, misappropriation or fraud. In other words, everyone else is held responsible for the operation of an organized system of false invoices that allowed his campaign to exceed electoral spending limits very widely..
He is specifically accused of having benefited as a candidate from about 43 million euros, far from the legal limit of 22.5 million, knowing that this limit had been exceeded.
Sarkozy was sentenced at the beginning of March for corruption, for having influenced a magistrate together with Herzog, to three years in prison, two of which were exempt from compliance, although he has appealed the sentence, so it is not final..
His legal affairs do not end here, since he could be prosecuted for having supposedly received money from the then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for the 2007 presidential campaign.