Former President of France Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be imprisoned on October 21, according to reports from the France-Presse agency. The former president will serve his five-year sentence in the Santé prison located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, as reported by the BBC.

At the end of September, a Paris court found the 70-year-old Sarkozy guilty of accepting millions of euros from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his electoral campaign and sentenced him to five years in prison.

The former president has denied all charges, asserting his innocence and attributing the criminal prosecution against him to political motives. His lawyers plan to file an appeal to the high court.

“If they want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but I will do it with my head held high,” Sarkozy told reporters after the verdict was delivered.