So is this a criminal president receiving justice, or a politically motivated prosecution?
replies(9):
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F...
There's been bags of cash that transited by private airplanes, terrorist acts in reprisal, and ultimately a probable demise of Gaddafi's regime in response.
Some real dirty actions with lots of lives lost.
Even if indeed guilty, things like jailing him "provisionally" despite his appeal are discretionary decisions of the court so also open to all interpretations despite the very black and white comments here...
It really is not. Nobody is benefitting from this politically, and the facts are difficult to ignore.
> jailing him "provisionally" despite his appeal are discretionary decisions of the court so also open to all interpretations depiste the very black and white comments her
It’s just how it’s done in cases like this, and he can thank himself for having normalised it.
First, this is mostly about things that happened before his election.
The tribunal ruled he did not personally benefit, and he did not directly solicit money to finance his campaign either.
However, some of his closest allies (who would become his ministers later) did the latter. The tribunal could not find any direct proof he was involved but ruled there were enough "converging indications" that he knew and did nothing to stop it.
But it is also clear that judges (who are notable left-leaning, if not far-left) are much more efficient at prosecuting right-wing figures (Fillon, for 0 reason this time).
Formal proofs of this illegal financing have been linked to two of his closest collaborators but not him directly. He is so convicted for "association de malfaiteurs" wich mean "partnership with criminals / wrongdoers".
The illegal financing also explains what the US call the "Sarkozy war", which what a very odd move from France.
Note that, despite the formal proofs of the wrong doing, Sarkozy has the support of most major medias AND from the current president Macron which is not exactly the same party as Sarkozy (but close enough). That suggests politically motivated prosecution is very unlikely.
There is no formal proofs, but as you say, (the judges deliberated that) there is enough "converging indications" to support the idea that the short explanation is true.
Speaking as someone who isn't french,
If Sarkozy received the same funding from Obama it would have beem extremely shady.
From Gaddafi it sounds outright treacherous.
Sarkozy and all of his billionaire media allies are already trying their hardest to undermine the credibility of the justice system at every turn with extremely dangerous rhetoric; I dread to imagine what this would have been like had they gone with ever-so-slightly-less-safe charges
I read it the other way around. You're arguing for preferencial treatment on the ground that any inconvenience could be misconstrued as politically motivated.
In the meantime you're seeing a case involving organized crime, lieutenants caught red-handed, and charges extended to the leader of the criminal enterprise. You're not seeing any doubt being raised on the charges, only on whether the politician could have political opponents.
This blend of comments strike me as odd. Are you actually complaining that a judicial system is too efficient at catching corruption at high levels? Is this bad? What point are you trying to make, exactly?
The tribunal didn't rule he didn't personally benefit. It ruled that he conspired to corrupt the leaders of Lybia to steal money from the Lybian people and fund his electoral campaign. In my book becoming president of France is certainly a "personal benefit". There are numerous factual evidence, documents from Lybia, fund transfers, secret meetings of his closest friends with Abdullah Senussi, who has been convicted to life in prison in France for orchestrating the bombing of UTA flight 772 which resulted in 170 deaths and is also currently investigated for another plane bombing.
The money he got allowed him to spend about twice the allowed amount on his campaign, giving him an unfair advantage in the election. In other words he dealt with terrorists to potentially steal the presidential election. What Sarkozy did is extremely severe, I'd call that high treason. He got far less that he deserved.
Also it's worth mentioning that it is his third conviction. He already got a 2 years and 1 year sentence which were confirmed in appeal in other cases.
It is unfortunately way less efficient at jailing or expelling multi-reoffenders, who have entered the country illegally, then broken the law multiple times, been in front of judges 30, 40, sometimes 100 times, been officially notified that they have to leave France ("OQTF"), yet, are still free to roam around until they're 101st crime ends up in the news and everyone asks "how come the non-politicized judges let them out 100 times before?"
But now he is also the subject of his own policies and it does not like that. Looks like justice is ok just when it is not affecting him personally.
His attitude is totally disgusting and indecent.
The current sentence is for the illegal financing of his presidential campaign to the tune of 50 million euro, which is well above the legal cost cap. Although the amounts are benign compared to the amount of bribery seen in the US presidential runs, it is still unfair democratically and should be punished harshly accordingly. Interestingly, this case isn't motivated by financial greed, as in bribery for his own financial interests, but by power, i.e., help win the presidential election.
It should be noted that most of the bigger parties are known to have "alternative" accounting tricks so you can be certain that they also don't fully respect the funding cap, but they probably get away with differences (that we know of/suspect) of a few (tens of?) percent.
Sarkozy was not only well, well above that, with order O(200%), it was also done with money coming from a known dictator: Gaddafi. This brings a lot of interesting additional ethical questions to the table. Such as: what was the quid pro quo expected from such a payment? Or: what role did it play in Sarkozy ordering the bombing of Libya?
It could also be considered politically motivated in the sense that the judges themselves are not a-political (and it's fully in their rights to have a political opinion) and that some of the high-profile cases in the past have been handled by judges of a different political leaning. And without putting the impartiality of the justice system into doubt, some questions have been raised when some of the judges were a bit too vocal in the criticism of their political opponents.
And in parallel, although the judiciary system in France theoretically acts independently from the executive branch, the zones of influence are a bit murky and there are some indirect ways through which some pressure can be exerted onto the judges to facilitate, or in other cases slow down some cases.
So you could be certain that such a high-profile case was not done without the go-ahead of the executive. In that sense, it can be considered politically motivated.
Which doesn't mean Sarkozy shouldn't go to prison. He absolutely should. But please also clean-up all the other crooks, and go strongly after those that enriched themselves at the cost of the country. There are plenty of them, with lots of low-hanging fruit.
And sure, belonging to a communist-leaning syndicate which publicly takes political stances (one being to say "dont vote for Sarkozy") has strictly no influence on how you deliver sentencing, nor does the famous incident "mur des cons" in 2013.
Not really. It is more complex than that.
There is two systems within the system for the "penal" (judiciary) in France:
- Le parquet, with a "procureur" who indirectly under the influence of the executive power.
- The "Juge d'Instruction". They are independent judges called only for complex affairs that are in charge of proof gathering and with more or less free hands.
Sarkozy affairs landed in the second system.
Politicans tend to hate the second systems for obvious reasons.
It is worth to notice that Sarkozy himself tried to reform the system and remove the "Juge d'instruction" entirely but ultimately failed.
[1] (French Wikipedia article about the affair) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_%C2%AB_Mur_des_cons...
the money didn't go in his pocket, but he benefited from it by being elected president (partly thanks to this illegal funding), which to this day gives him a life of money and various privileges.
Your claim that the judges are red is a popular right wing fantasy
The "Juge d'instruction" is not an independent judge that will, out of his own will, start an investigation.
He can start an investigation when asked by the "procureur", directly or indirectly under influence of the executive power, or by private citizens, as a "partie civile". The Sarkozy case was started by the former.
On top of that, the "juge d'instruction" is nominated by the Minister of Justice for a period of 3 years, which means it is, once again, linked to the executive power.
Nope. This picture was found in the office of an Union related to "magistrats".
Magistrats is a broad term that also include Procureurs, Judges but also some Lawyers.
The union is not specifically associated to the position of "Juge d'instruction" by any means.
But yes, generally speaking Politicians do not like Magistrats and Magistrats do not like politicians in France. And honestly, it is more healthy like that.
The short answer is you can't. But There is enough hints that he maybe implicated at least as much as his collaborators.
One for example, is a testimony of a "smuggler" that he deposited the dirty money 2 times to his collaborator and once directly to Sarkozy. Not enough, he could lie.
A write-up of a meeting preparing the coming of Sarkozy (in arabic) that suggests there is another important subject to the visit of Sarkozy in Lybia. In a way that coincides, we know that the discuss alone (Gaddafy, Sarkozy and Guéant without any diplomatic representative only translators). Not enough, maybe it was another secret subject.
That may explains the famous trip of Gaddafy in Paris. (10 of December 2007, which was an unexpected move regarding his implication in multiple "plane terrorist attacks" (DC10 UTA ( UTA 772),Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie)) and the "greatness" of the trip which was in "great fanfare" very uncommon one. https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=3984020 Maybe Sarkozy really trade welcoming trip for good contracts but nobody trusts that.
It can also explains the implication of Sarkozy in nato air strike on Lybia to help the rebels (that leads to Gaddafy death). Gaddafy may have ask for help to interfere the revolt, and Sarkozy couln't politicaly explains it so did the opposite. At that moment, Lybia official reported that he must get the money back and that he was financed by their money (one of the two who reported it is dead, the other one is in exile and it's more complicated because he first support Sarkozy to get extracted from Lybia as he was caught by the rebels). At that time, nobody trusted the Lybia representative as the regime was a terrorist state.
Sooo, you can't tell that he knows, but it does explains a lot.
Judges are socialists
https://www.grasset.fr/livre/le-coup-detat-des-juges-9782246...