French Ex-President Sarkozy to Face Corruption Trial in October

(Bloomberg) --

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy faces a corruption trial in October charged with attempting to persuade a high-ranking magistrate to leak confidential information about another investigation targeting him.

The trial is scheduled to take place over three weeks in October, with the first court date set for Oct. 5 and lasting through to Oct. 22, a Paris judge said on Wednesday. There’ll be an interim hearing on June 17 to allow prosecution and defense to discuss any new information.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, was charged with influence peddling five years ago following a day of interrogation by a special team of anti-corruption magistrates. In court, he will be squaring off with prosecutors from the Parquet National Financier.

The case centers on whether an official at France’s highest court kept Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog informed about confidential aspects of an investigation into the former president’s campaign financing.

French investigative judges began tapping Sarkozy’s phone in 2013 as part of a probe into allegations of illegal funding by the regime of Libya’s former leader Muammar Qaddafi ahead of the Frenchman’s election in May 2007. Sarkozy was then found to be using a mobile phone registered to another name to have discussions with Herzog.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net;Gaspard Sebag in Paris at gsebag@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katerina Petroff at kpetroff@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman

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