Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has faced multiple corruption investigations since leaving office in 2012. He was handed preliminary charges just last week in the most shocking affair: accusations that he took millions in illegal campaign financing from then-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
In a separate case, a judicial official said Thursday that Sarkozy was ordered to stand trial on accusations that he tried to illegally obtain information from a magistrate about yet another investigation involving Sarkozy.
The former president, 63, can appeal the order, and no potential trial date has been set. He has denied wrongdoing.
"It's an ignominious act, not [just] a lie," Sarkozy said during a live television interview on French station TF1. "I owe the French people the truth: I never betrayed their trust."
Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, is also being ordered to stand trial, along with former magistrate Gilbert Azibert. Sarkozy and Herzog did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
"I'm not above the law, but I'm not below it either," Sarkozy said during the interview.
Sarkozy has objected to the case because part of the investigation is based on information gleaned from tapped phone conversations between him and his lawyer.
Sarkozy and Herzog are suspected of promising the magistrate a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about an investigation into suspected illegal financing of Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign by France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Investigators are examining allegations that Gadhafi's regime secretly gave Sarkozy 50 million euros ($61.6 million) for his 2007 presidential election bid.
As France's president from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy put France in the forefront of the NATO-led airstrikes against Gadhafi's troops that helped rebel fighters topple Gadhafi's regime in 2011.
As a result, Libya continues to be a divided nation to this day, with multiple factions being engaged in the ongoing civil war.
Gadhafi's fall also helped to manifest the rise of Daesh in North Africa.
In March of 2011, Gadhafi predicted mass sub-Saharan immigration into Europe as well as multiple terrorist attacks, and in May of that year he wrote an open letter to NATO:
"Now, listen you, people of NATO. You're bombing a wall that stood in the way of African immigration to Europe, and in the way of al-Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You're breaking it. You're idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of immigrants from Africa and for supporting al-Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now."
In October of the same year, Gadhafi was captured by rebels following a NATO airstrike and was subsequently lynched to death.
An investigation into Sarkozy's actions has been underway since 2013.
It got a boost when French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told the online investigative site Mediapart in 2016 that he delivered suitcases from Libya containing 5 million euros ($6.2 million) in cash to Sarkozy and his former chief of staff, Claude Gueant.
He said the money was not meant to finance Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007, but to honor contracts between France and Libya.
"Mr. Takieddine lies," Sarkozy told the investigating judges, according to Le Figaro.
Thursday's announcement marks the second time so far in which Sarkozy has been sent to trial.
Last year, a judge ordered a trial for Sarkozy and 13 others on charges of illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign. In that case, his conservative party and a company named Bygmalion are accused of using a special invoice system to conceal unauthorized overspending.
Sarkozy appealed that order to stand trial, and a decision on his appeal is pending. The Gadhafi investigation, meanwhile, is ongoing.
