French former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been convicted of corruption, will if necessary fight to the European Court of Human Rights to prove his innocence. “I cannot accept that I have been convicted for something I did not do,” he said an interview with daily newspaper Le Figaro. “There is no evidence whatsoever against me.” However, he rules out a return to active politics.
Sarkozy (66) was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday, two of which are on probation, for corruption and abuse of power. He allegedly tried to obtain confidential information from a top official about a legal investigation that was going into him. That official would have been promised a job in Monaco in return.
The former president (2007-2012) announced immediately after the verdict that he would appeal. Now, for the first time, he will also discuss the substantive content of the pronunciation. “I’ve had thousands of statements of support, hundreds of phone calls,” he said in Le Figaro. But above all, he is very harsh about the work of the judges, which he thinks is not good.
Doubt of impartiality judges
During the judicial investigation “all procedural rules were violated”. Sarkozy says he doubts the impartiality of judges. According to him, the verdict is linked to absurdities.
“I don’t want to call it a political verdict, because that would damage our democracy,” he starts cautiously. But then he lashes out hard. According to him, everyone at the trial was able to see that there was nothing left of the allegations.
“It says in black and white in the documents that I did not lobby in Monaco for a job. Nobody was paid a cent. Nobody got any benefit. There were no casualties,” said Sarkozy.
“A total of 4,500 telephone conversations of mine were tapped. In which democracy can an opposition leader – because that was me – be spied on in such a way, for seven months, while the content of those telephone conversations also leaked into the press?” Sarkozy wonders. “If this had happened in Putin’s Russia, human rights activists would have been screaming assassination long ago.”
Not a candidate anymore
In the interview he is also asked about his political ambitions. In his party, the right-wing Les Républicains, some are hoping for his return. Presidential elections will be held in France in more than a year. “I’ve left active politics behind,” says Sarkozy. “I will not run. But that does not mean that I will not give my opinion in the elections.”
After all, Le Figaro asks him what he did after the judge’s verdict. “I spent the evening with my family. We watched a series: The Killing.”
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