Bad news for the former Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant. The politician will spend the Christmas holidays and the New Year in prison even though he has settled all of what he was ordered to pay in the cabinet bonuses case, dating from 2017. The judge refused to study his request for release before January 19. This implies that Claude Guéant will not get out of the Health prison in Paris, where he has been imprisoned since last Monday, before January 19. His request for release will therefore be re-examined on that date.
A sum of 292,000 euros paid on December 16
Claude Guéant, 76, paid 292,000 euros on December 16 to pay off the debt owed to the Public Treasury following a 2017 conviction which the courts considered did not meet the obligations. He immediately applied for a modified sentence aimed at his release and hoped that the judge responsible for the application of sentences would study it more quickly. “I am surprised at such a long delay when everything was settled in three days,” his lawyer, Philippe Bouchez El-Ghozi, told AFP. Claude Guéant “will not only spend the holidays in prison, but also his birthday (…) he saw it very, very badly”.
In detail, “Claude Guéant paid 133,315.95 euros to put his debt to zero”, but also settled that of “one of the co-convicts (who) had not paid his full share and it is a solidarity debt therefore due 100% by each convict, “he explained on Sunday. According to him, this was done through loans from relatives. Claude Guéant has been detained for a week at the Paris-La Santé penitentiary in application of the 2017 conviction, a first for a former Minister of the Interior.
A sentence that became final two years later
In the case of the cash bonuses of the Ministry of the Interior, the former right-hand man of Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on January 23, 2017 on appeal to two years’ imprisonment, one of which was suspended on probation and a fine of 75,000 euros. . He was serving this sentence – which became final two years later after the rejection of his cassation appeal – under the conditional release regime.
In early November, however, the Paris Court of Appeal revoked part of his suspension (3 months) and his parole (6 months), considering that Claude Guéant was not making the necessary payments to pay the fine and damages. and interest he had been inflicted on. It is in execution of these decisions that Mr. Guéant was placed in jail for nine months, had specified to AFP Me Bouchez El-Ghozi.