Former French President Sarkozy begins a 5-year prison sentence for campaign finance conspiracy

PARIS: FORMER French President Nicolas Sarkozy entered a prison in Paris on Tuesday to begin serving a 5-year sentence for a criminal conspiracy to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya — a historic moment that makes him the first ex-leader of modern France to be imprisoned.

Sarkozy, 70, was greeted by hundreds of supporters when he walked out of his Paris home earlier in the day hand-in-hand with his wife, supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. He embraced her before getting into a police car.

Minutes later, the vehicle passed through the gates of the notorious La Santé prison — where Sarkozy will now serve his sentence in solitary confinement.

Sarkozy was convicted last month for criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya.

He contests both the conviction and a judge’s unusual decision to incarcerate him pending appeal.

His lawyers said Tuesday that they filed an immediate request for his release.

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A show of defiance

“It’s an ominous day for him, for France and for our institutions, because this incarceration is a disgrace,” Sarkozy’s lawyer Jean-Michel Darrois told reporters soon after his incarceration.

In a show of defiance and while on his way to the prison, Sarkozy released a statement on social media declaring that “an innocent man” was being locked up.

“I will continue to denounce this judicial scandal,” he wrote. “The truth will prevail.”

Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper that he would bring three books in prison — the maximum allowed — including Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,″ in which the hero escapes from an island prison before seeking revenge.

He also picked a biography of Jesus Christ. “I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll hold my head high, including in front of the doors of La Santé,” he told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper last week.

“I’ll fight till the end.” Sarkozy has repeatedly said he is the victim of “a plot” staged by some people linked to the Libyan government and denounced the Sept. 25 verdict as a “scandal.”