PARIS – Around 30 lawyers have filed a complaint against the French justice minister accusing him of “implicitly” supporting former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is serving a prison sentence.
Last month Sarkozy, France’s president from 2007 to 2012, was handed a five-year jail term for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his electoral campaign.
On Wednesday, Sarkozy, 70, received a prison visit from Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, despite a prosecutor warning that it could undermine judicial independence.
Darmanin met Sarkozy at Paris’s La Sante prison in the presence of the jail’s director, and discussed the former head of state’s security arrangements, a source close to the case told AFP.
A group of around 30 lawyers filed a complaint after Darmanin last week expressed his “sadness” at the conviction of one of his political mentors, ahead of Sarkozy’s imprisonment. AFP
The complaint was filed late Thursday with the Court of Justice of the Republic, which judges incumbent or former ministers for alleged offences committed while in office.
“I feel great sadness for President Sarkozy,” Darmanin told broadcaster France Inter last week. “I was his colleague and cannot be insensitive to another man’s distress.”
Darmanin “took a position in a matter over which he has administrative power”, said the complaint a copy of which was seen by AFP.
In their complaint, the lawyers said they were “particularly outraged by the statements made by the justice minister” who publicly expressed “his compassion for Mr Sarkozy by emphasising the personal ties between them.”
The lawyers accused Darmanin of “implicitly offering” Sarkozy his “support.”
Such a stance, they added, “is likely to compromise the impartiality and objectivity of Mr Darmanin who, as Justice Minister, cannot take such a position in a pending case.”
Sarkozy’s legal team has requested his release pending his appeal trial.
Darmanin has already sought to address the controversy.
“Ensuring the safety of a former president in prison, which is unprecedented, in no way undermines the independence of magistrates but is part of my duty of vigilance as head of the administration,” Darmanin has said on X.
Sarkozy is the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II. AFP
