Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will be granted early release from jail, three weeks into a five-year prison term for taking part in a criminal conspiracy, the BBC reports.
He will be subject to strict judicial supervision and barred from leaving France.
On 21 October the former centre-right president, 70, was sentenced to five years for conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
His lawyers immediately filed a request seeking his release, pending an appeal trial next March.
Sarkozy could be freed from La Santé prison as early as Monday evening.
Public prosecutor Damien Brunet recommended that Sarkozy’s request for release be granted, but that the former president be banned from contacting other witnesses in the so-called “Libyan dossier”.
Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, told the court via video link that he had never had the “mad idea” of asking Gaddafi for money and stated he would “never admit to something I haven’t done”.
Sarkozy also paid tribute to prison staff who had made his time in prison “bearable”. “They have shown exceptional humanity,” he said.
