A French court on Tuesday ordered Nicolas Sarkozy to stand trial for illicit campaign financing, adding to the ex-president’s legal woes as he also prepares to answer charges of exerting pressure on a judge.

Sarkozy, 64, lost his final appeal to France’s highest criminal court, and risks a year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros ($4,085) if found guilty.

The ruling came the same day as another court ordered a trial for ex-prime minister Edouard Balladur on charges of campaign finance violations in an unrelated case.

Sarkozy is not the country’s first former president to be prosecuted — Jacques Chirac, who died last week, was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for embezzlement and misuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris.

Prosecutors say Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros ($40 million) on his failed 2012 re-election bid — almost double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros — using fake invoices.

He has said he was unaware of the fraud by executives at the public relations firm Bygmalion, who are among 13 others being pursued in the case.

Sarkozy’s lawyer Emmanuel Piwnica called the appeals court ruling a “disappointment”.

Since losing the election to the Socialist Party’s Francois Hollande and leaving office, Sarkozy has fought a barrage of corruption and campaign financing charges, all of which he rejects.

The former Republican party leader faces another trial on charges of corruption and influence peddling over his alleged attempts to try to get information from a judge about an investigation focused on him.

And he has been charged over accusations he accepted millions of euros from the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi towards his first presidential campaign in 2007.

– ‘Disappointment’ –

Sarkozy will face a standard criminal court, while Balladur, 90, will be tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic, a tribunal set up to hear cases of ministerial misconduct.

The court has no jurisdiction over heads of state, except in treason cases.

Balladur and former defence minister Francois Leotard, 77, were charged in 2017 with “complicity in misuse of corporate assets” over the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia when Balladur was prime minister, from 1993 to 1995.

Read Also Ex- French President Sarkozy to face trial for corruption

The kickbacks are estimated at some 13 million francs (almost two million euros in today’s money), which are suspected of including a cash donation to Balladur’s 1995 presidential campaign of a little over 10 million francs, prosecutor Francois Molins said in a statement.

Balladur also has to answer to a charge that he concealed the crimes.

The claims came to light during an investigation into a 2002 bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, which targeted a bus transporting French engineers.

Fifteen people were killed, including 11 engineers working on the submarine contract.

The Al-Qaeda terror network was initially suspected of the attack, but the focus later shifted to the arms deal as investigators considered whether the bombing may have been revenge for the non-payment of promised bribes after Chirac pipped Balladur in the vote and cancelled the payment of commissions.

Balladur’s lawyers said Tuesday that he was “confident” he would be cleared of any wrongdoing, “given that he never committed any of the acts of which he is accused.”

Six others facing trial in the case include Balladur’s campaign manager Nicolas Bazire; Thierry Gaubert, who worked for Sarkozy, who was budget minister at the time; and a Franco-Lebanese middleman, Ziad Takieddine.

They will go on trial this month in a Paris criminal court.

Other senior French politicians charged with financial misconduct include the former prime ministers Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe.

Fillon crashed out of the running for the presidency in 2017 after being charged with using public funds to pay his wife for a fake job as his assistant.

Juppe, a prime minister under Chirac, was given a suspended jail sentence in 2004 over a party funding scandal.

On Monday, ex-justice minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas was given a suspended month-long sentence for passing on secret details of a tax fraud and corruption investigation to the politician targeted, the rightwing MP Thierry Solere.

France’s National Assembly and Senate stood in silence on Thursday to mark the death of former president Jacques Chirac.

Chirac, who ruled France from 1995 to 2007, “is now part of France’s history,” National Assembly president Richard Ferrand said in an official statement.

The conservative Chirac was best known abroad for his staunch opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At home, perhaps his greatest legacy was his acknowledgement, for the first time, of the French state’s role in the wartime round-up and arrest of Jewish people to Nazi death camps.

But he also knew many political setbacks, including the 2005 rejection by French voters of a proposed constitution for the EU.

Later the same year, he suffered a minor stroke, and in the closing months of the year the country saw severe rioting by frustrated youths from minority backgrounds.

In 2011, he received a two-year suspended sentence over allegations that, as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, he put party members on the city payroll without them actually working.

Tributes to the former president came from left and right, with Ferrand also recalling his commitment to arts and the environment.

Read Also: France’s inhumanity to Africans

“Personally, I cannot forget the last message he addressed to us when he left power, in which he exhorted the French people never to compromise with extremism, racism, anti-
Semitism, or the rejection of others,” Ferrand wrote.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner spoke of “the strong emotion that touches, at this moment, the French people.”

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was “devastated” to hear of the death of Chirac, whom he counted as a great friend, a spokeswoman said.

The leader of the EU executive has “no words to express his grief,” according to commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva.

Chirac, who suffered from severe memory problems, had disappeared from public life in recent years. His wife Bernadette, who survives him, has also faded from public view.

 

(dpa/NAN)

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are keeping busy on their royal trip to South Africa.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex paid a visit to the country’s oldest mosque, the Auwal Mosque, in the Bo-Kaap section of Cape Town. It was built in 1794.

For the visit, Meghan ditched the denim jacket she wore earlier in the day and donned a cream-coloured headscarf. Harry changed out of his casual-collar shirt to a light-grey suit with no tie.

Earlier in the day, the couple paid a visit to Monwabisi Beach on behalf of Waves For Change, a nonprofit that promotes surfing and also provides mental health services.

Read Also; Why Prince Harry is being accused of ‘cheating’

“Their Royal Highnesses were able to hear how the sessions are building trust, confidence, and belonging,” read a caption describing the meeting on the Sussex Royal Instagram page, with a gorgeous photo of Meghan smiling.

“And they also got to join in as children took part in ‘power hand’, which teaches them how to keep calm down [and] reflect on strengths.”

During the outing, the two royals complemented each other’s parenting skills, though little Archie was nowhere to be seen on the second day of the family’s trip (as he may have been resting up and recovering from a little jet lag).

World leaders will begin the annual days of speeches at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s address expected to draw much of the focus.

Trump is speaking amid worsening tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

While the U.S. president has not ruled out meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rowhani, who will address the assembly on Wednesday, the chance of that happening seems unlikely.

Tensions have been rising between the two nations ever since Trump pulled Washington out of a 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers, in spite of no sign then of violations by Iran.

The agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump has since been imposing tough sanctions on Iran, seeking to cripple the country’s economy and force the country to change its foreign policy.

There have been concerns in recent months that the countries could go to war, most recently after an attack on a Saudi Arabian oil field, which is largely being blamed on Tehran.

Read Also: Trump names Robert O’Brien as new national security adviser

Iran rejects responsibility. Trump says he is showing restraint, for now, and is not launching strikes.

Also addressing the UN on Tuesday will be Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, French President Emmanuel Macron, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, among others.

The General Debate section comes a day after the UN held a major summit on climate change.

Trump will hold a series of bilateral meetings during the day, including with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Iraqi President Barham Salih.