Former French president Sarkozy claims innocence at Libya funding appeals trial

France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy has told an appeal court "I am innocent" – rejecting charges he had sought Libyan financing for his 2007 election campaign in exchange for helping improve Tripoli's image after deadly bombings.

A lower court in September found Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, guilty of seeking to acquire funding from then-Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi for the campaign that saw him elected, and sentenced him to five years behind bars.

The case saw Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, become modern France's first president to have been jailed.

He served 20 days before he was released pending the appeal.

In the initial trial, prosecutors argued that Sarkozy's aides, acting in his name, struck a deal with Gaddafi, promising in return to help restore the Libyan leader's international image after Tripoli was blamed for two aeroplane bombings.

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The West laid the blame on Libya for the bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland – which killed 259 people – and of the UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989.

Sarkozy is suspected of having allowed his closest collaborators to negotiate with Abdallah Senoussi, a high-ranking Libyan official who was sentenced to life imprisonment for having ordered the Niger attack – which claimed the lives of 170 people, including 54 French citizens.

'Indescribable suffering'

Relatives of those killed in the 1989 bombing spoke of their ordeal at the appeal trial last week.

"It's not possible to leave these testimonies unanswered," Sarkozy said, on the first of several days of taking the stand.

"We cannot remain indifferent, but it is impossible to have a response that matches the suffering expressed," he told the courtroom.

"You can only respond to such indescribable suffering with truth. But you cannot repair suffering with an injustice: I am innocent," he said.

The fall of France's Nicolas Sarkozy, from palace to prison

The lower court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy over what it said was a scheme to acquire Libyan funding, but not of receiving or using the funds for the campaign.

The appeal trial is set to run until 3 June, with a verdict expected in the autumn. If convicted, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison.

The former Republican president has faced a series of legal issues since leaving office and has already received two definitive convictions in other cases.

(with AFP)