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| - Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was handed a three-year jail term on Monday, convicted of trying to illegally influence a judge. Other cases against Sarkozy are pending. Here is a summary of scandals involving the politician who led France from 2007 to 2012: Sarkozy was convicted of corruption on Monday over claims he had offered a plum job in Monaco to a judge for information about a separate inquiry into the financing of his successful 2007 election campaign. He was given a three-year term with two years suspended, meaning it is unlikely the 66-year-old will go to prison. Since 2013, investigating magistrates have been examining allegations that Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime helped finance Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign. The Libyan dictator's son Seif al-Islam was the first to air the claims in 2011, when he said the French rightwinger should "give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign". A year later, the investigative website Mediapart published a document saying that Kadhafi had agreed to support Sarkozy with up to 50 million euros ($60 million at current rates). Sarkozy was charged in 2018 with taking bribes, illegal campaign financing and illegal receipt of Libyan funds. In October 2020, he was further charged with conspiring to commit a crime. Again, the 2007 campaign was under the spotlight. This time, Sarkozy's then-UMP party was accused of accepted illicit payments from L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt in cash-filled envelopes. After a lengthy investigation that he claimed was politically motivated, Sarkozy was cleared of taking advantage of Bettencourt while she was too frail to understand what she was doing. However, it was his attempts to get information about this inquiry that saw him convicted of corruption. Sarkozy faces trial in March and April over the illegal funding of his failed 2012 re-election bid, which featured huge US-style stadium rallies. His campaign overshot strict French campaign spending limits by a wide margin, a fact that was allegedly hidden through a system of fake invoices that were fraudulently passed off as party expenses. Sarkozy has denied any knowledge of the alleged fraud which is known as the "Bygmalion" affair. Exceeding campaign spending limits carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine. A long-running investigation that involves two former Sarkozy aides, charged by judges probing alleged kickbacks from a Pakistani arms deal concluded when Sarkozy was budget minister. A shell company was allegedly used to channel kickbacks to then prime minister Edouard Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential bid, which Sarkozy helped run. Sarkozy has been interviewed as a witness, not a suspect. At Balladur's trial, prosecutors asked for the 91-year-old to be sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term and a fine of 50,000 euros. French financial crime prosecutors said in January they had opened a probe into influence-peddling against Sarkozy over advisory activities he carried out in Russia. The Mediapart website said the probe targeted a payment by Russian insurance firm Reso-Garantia of three million euros in 2019 while Sarkozy was working as an adviser, well after leaving office. It said investigators were trying to verify whether Sarkozy acted only as a consultant -- which would be perfectly legal -- "or if he engaged in potentially criminal lobbying activities on behalf of the Russian oligarchs". burs/jh/js/jxb
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