PARIS: France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy has received a prison visit from the justice minister, a source close to the case said on Thursday, despite a prosecutor warning that it could undermine judicial independence.
Gerald Darmanin met Sarkozy on Wednesday evening at La Sante prison in the presence of the jail’s director, and discussed the former head of state’s security arrangements, the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Before he was locked up, Darmanin said he intended to visit Sarkozy to ensure his security conditions were adequate for his “exceptional status.”
Top prosecutor Remy Heitz at the time warned that such a visit risked “undermining the independence of magistrates.”
Fifty-seven percent of French people also disapproved of the visit, according to a survey of 1,025 people published last week by Taluna Harris.
The right-wing leader who led France from 2007 to 2012 was found guilty last month of trying to get election campaign funding from Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya.
The 70-year-old was handed a five-year prison term for criminal conspiracy.
Sarkozy’s legal team has requested his release pending his appeal trial, but said he is expected to remain in jail for at least “three weeks to a month.”
Two security officers are stationed in a neighboring cell to ensure his protection, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
Sarkozy is the first former head of a European Union state to be jailed, and the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II.
He has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing his re-election bid in 2012, having already been convicted in two other cases.
Sarkozy still enjoys some popularity on the French right. Days before starting his prison sentence, he visited French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace.
French justice minister visits jailed former president Sarkozy
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French justice minister visits jailed former president Sarkozy
- Gerald Darmanin met Sarkozy on Wednesday evening at La Sante prison
- Darmanin said he intended to visit Sarkozy to ensure his security conditions were adequate for his “exceptional status“
UK child killer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack: police
- Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002
- He suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26
LONDON: One of Britain’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, died on Saturday following an attack in prison where he was serving a life sentence, police said.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, in a case that horrified the country.
Fifty-two-year-old Huntley suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement emailed to AFP.
A spokesperson for the government’s justice ministry said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Aug. 4 2002.
Their disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of police officers and appeals for help.
A photograph of the two girls wearing matching Manchester United football tops became instantly recognizable to many Britons.
Their bodies were found almost two weeks later, dumped in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, aroused the suspicion of police after he gave media interviews claiming to be concerned for the girls’ welfare.
He denied murdering them but was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, gave Huntley a false alibi and was jailed for perverting the course of justice. She now lives under a new identity.
Revelations that Huntley had been the subject of prior rape and sexual assault complaints led to the establishment of criminal checks for anyone working with children.
He had been attacked before in prison, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
“A police investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing,” the spokesperson said, adding that prosecutors would consider bringing charges against his assailant.
