First modification:
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy faces a second trial on charges of irregular financing of his 2012 presidential campaign, in which he was defeated by François Hollande. The lawyer for another of the 13 defendants is currently hospitalized for Covid-19, which is why the process was postponed.
A second process is opened against the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for alleged irregularities in his campaign for re-election in 2012.
Sarkozy is accused of having benefited from hidden funding that allowed him to practically double the spending ceiling imposed by French law during his re-election campaign in the presidential elections of that year, in which he was defeated by the socialist François Hollande.
The former president did not appear in court on Wednesday, since the trial was postponed and will now take place between May 20 and June 22.
The judges postponed the date after Jérôme Lavrilleux’s defense attorney, Sarkozy’s deputy campaign manager in 2012 and one of 13 defendants, fell ill with coronavirus.
The new trial against Sarkozy comes less than three weeks after he was sentenced to three years in prison for corruption and influence peddling. He, for his part, has always denied the accusations and assures that he was not aware of these irregularities.
If convicted, he could be jailed for up to a year and fined 3,750 euros.
Sarkozy’s inner circle
Bygmalion is the name of the public relations agency where the funds were diverted by Sarkozy’s electoral campaign in 2012. According to the investigation against the former president, the defendants devised a double financing system that, through false invoices, allowed charge his party, the UMP – later renamed Los Republicanos – expenses for organizing the candidate’s extravagant rallies.
In total, Sarkozy’s campaign spent almost 43 million euros, compared to the 22.5 million euros authorized by French electoral law for a candidate who made it through the first round.
Prosecutors in the case acknowledge that the investigation did not show that Sarkozy was directly involved. However, they argue that the ex-president benefited from the plan and must have been aware of it.
In the indictment document it can be read that “the electoral candidate and his inner circle chose to focus the campaign on spectacular and expensive rallies and to entrust the organization to specialized agencies.”
In that inner circle is Jérôme Lavrilleux, Sarkozy’s deputy campaign manager in 2012 and a central protagonist in this case, since he was the first to confess his participation in a large scam based on false invoices, aimed at attributing the excessive spending of the UMP to the UMP. Sarkozy’s campaign.
Lavrilleux has publicly acknowledged that he oversaw the diversion of funds paid to the Bygmalion agency to camouflage the cost of campaign events.
Additionally, Guy Alves, one of the two accused Bygmalion co-founders, acknowledged the false billing. In 2014, a lawyer for the agency claimed that the company had acted under political pressure.
Rivalry within the French right
In 2012, Jean-François Copé led the conservative UMP party. According to French media, the politician signed a loan request to save the training coffers.
Copé is not part of this new trial since the investigators did not find sufficient evidence to accuse him, but he has always assured that he was unaware of the excesses of Sarkozy’s campaign, with whom he always maintained a rivalry relationship.
Sarkozy’s defense, as well as that of other defendants, point out that Copé should have known that the organization’s money was being spent in some way if he asked for a loan.
For his part, Sarkozy assures that everything is a montage of Copé, who forced him to work with the Bygmalion agency. He also assures that the money diverted did not go to his campaign, but was left in the pockets of his rival.
With AFP, Reuters, EFE and local media
.
#Bygmalion #case #trial #Nicolas #Sarkozy #postponed
source https://pledgetimes.com/bygmalion-case-second-trial-against-nicolas-sarkozy-postponed/
Disqus comments