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Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy has asserted that his time behind bars has been “exhausting” and a “horrific experience” as he appeared via remote connection at a court hearing regarding his application to serve his sentence at home.

Legal Proceeding from Behind Bars

The former leader, dressed in a dark blue attire, appeared on camera from jail on Monday, positioned at a desk with his legal representatives beside him. He told the court: “I want to commend all the prison staff, who are exceptionally humane, and who have made this nightmare bearable – because it is a horrific experience.”

Context of the Case

The former president was admitted to La Santé prison in Paris on 21 October, after being handed a half-decade imprisonment for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain funds for his election bid from the government of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He has challenged the ruling, but the court ruled that because of the “serious nature” of his conviction, he had to be incarcerated while the legal challenge took its course.

Unprecedented Significance

The former leader, who served as France’s conservative leader between 2007 and 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to be imprisoned in prison, and the first French postwar leader to go behind bars.

Emotional Testimony

The former president stated to the judges from prison: “I never had any idea or desire to ask Mr Gaddafi for any kind of financing … I will never confess to something I didn’t do … I could not have foreseen that at 70 years of age, I’d be in prison. It’s an ordeal that has been imposed on me. I admit it’s hard, it’s extremely challenging. It leaves a mark on any prisoner because it’s gruelling.”

He said he would not try to communicate with any defendants or testifiers in the case. He said: “I’m French, I love my country, my family is in France. This situation has made them suffer a lot.”

Defense Lawyers Observations

His legal representative Jean-Michel Darrois, positioned beside him in the remote connection facility, said: “Being in solitary confinement has been extremely difficult for him.” He said of Sarkozy: “He’s a strong, robust and courageous man and this detention has caused him great suffering.”

In court, another of Sarkozy’s lawyers, Christophe Ingrain, who had visited him every day, asserted Sarkozy would be safer outside jail than within. “He has received threats against his life, has heard screaming at night and the urgent intervention in a neighbouring cell when a prisoner self-harmed,” he stated.

Current Status

The state prosecutor Damien Brunet requested that Sarkozy’s petition for freedom be approved. The court will announce its decision on Monday afternoon.

Incarceration Details

The former president has been placed in isolation for his own safety, in an private room of about 97 square feet, with his own shower and toilet. Security personnel are occupying a neighbouring cell to protect him.

Accounts suggested that he had been eating only yoghurt in prison as he was concerned any food might have been contaminated. He had been offered the facilities to prepare his own meals but refused this.

Encouragement from the Public

Sarkozy’s social media account last week posted a video of numerous correspondences, postcards and parcels it claimed had been delivered to his attention, including a collage, a chocolate bar and a volume. “No letter will go unanswered,” his account declared. “The final chapter has not yet been written.”

Personal Belongings

The former leader brought with him a biography of Jesus as well as the classic novel, the famous work in which an wrongly accused individual is imprisoned but breaks out to take revenge.

Legal Proceedings Particulars

During Sarkozy’s three-month trial, the state attorney had told the court that Sarkozy engaged in a “Faustian pact of dishonesty with one of the most unspeakable dictators of the last 30 years.

Sarkozy denied wrongdoing and said he had not been involved in a illegal scheme to obtain campaign finances from Libya.

He was found not guilty of three distinct accusations of dishonesty, misuse of Libyan public funds and illegal election campaign funding. After the public attorney also appealed against these not guilty verdicts, Sarkozy will be judged again on all the accusations next year, including illegal collaboration.

Prior Legal Issues

Although the allegations of a secret campaign funding pact with the Libyan regime formed the biggest corruption trial Sarkozy had encountered, he had already been convicted in two separate cases and stripped of France’s top honor, the national recognition.

Sarkozy had previously become the initial ex-leader forced to wear an monitoring device after being convicted in a separate case of dishonesty and improper sway. In that situation, he was given a one-year jail term but was able to serve it with an electronic tag attached to his leg. He had the device for a quarter year before being allowed limited freedom.