Paris - Former French President Nicolas
Sarkozy will face trial over charges he misused his influence to
secure leaked details of an inquiry into alleged irregularities
in his 2007 election campaign, France's financial prosecutor
said Thursday.
Sarkozy's lawyers said he would appeal the decision to send
him to court, initially reported by the daily Le Monde.
The case came about after investigators used phone-taps to
examine separate allegations that late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi funded Sarkozy's campaign and began to suspect he had
kept tabs on a separate case through a network of informants.
The development came just over a week after Sarkozy was told
he was being formally treated as a suspect in the election
campaign investigation.
Sarkozy was president from 2007 to 2012 but was defeated by
Socialist Francois Hollande when he ran for re-election. He has
since faced a series of investigations into alleged corruption,
fraud, favoritism and campaign-funding irregularities.
Sarkozy’s lawyers had previously argued that magistrates
investigating the alleged secret Libyan funding exceeded their
powers and went on a “fishing expedition” by tapping his
conversations with them between September 2013 and March 2014,
breaching lawyer-client privilege.
Based on the intercepts, Sarkozy is accused of having
discussed offering a promotion to a prosecutor in return for
tip-offs on an investigation into accusations that his former
party treasurer and others exploited the mental frailty of
France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, to extract
political donations in cash.