Former French President Sarkozy sentenced to 5 years in prison in Libyan campaign financing case

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison for conspiracy in a case involving Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign, according to media reports.

He is expected to be summoned within one month by prosecutors to inform him when he will begin serving his sentence.

The court found Sarkozy, who denied all wrongdoing, guilty of criminal conspiracy but cleared him of passive corruption and other illegal financing charges, the reports said.

Sarkozy faced charges of illegal campaign financing, passive corruption, concealment of embezzled public funds, and conspiracy.​

The prosecution characterized an alleged 2005 agreement between Sarkozy, then-interior minister, and then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as a "pact of corruption inconceivable, unheard of, indecent."

Sarkozy was elected France’s president in 2007 and served at the post until 2012.