Corruption

The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was found guilty of having tried to obtain confidential information about him from a magistrate, and to obtain a dismissal in an older case.

He has been sentenced to 3 years in prison (1 year custodial and 2 non-custodial).

He can still appeal against this conviction.

Lee Jae-yong, executive of South Korea’s giant Samsung group, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and sent to jail on Monday. He was found guilty of bribery involving the country’s former president Park Geun-hye, who is already behind bars.

Initially, in 2017, Lee was sentenced to five years in jail, but Lee was released from jail the following year after an appeal court decided that the bribes paid were significantly smaller than previously thought. The case wound its way all the way up to the South Korean Supreme Court, which, in 2019, ordered the retrial.

Chico Rodrigues, Jair Bolsonaro's deputy leader in the senate, was caught by the Brazilian Federal Police with R$30,000 (€4,572) concealed between his clenched buttocks. The police raid Wednesday was part of an operation against the misappropriation of public funds for fighting Covid-19.

Rodrigues, a Senator for the state of Roraima, released a statement claiming "I have a clean background and a respectable life. I’ve never been involved in any kind of scandal."

Najib Razak, Malaysian Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 210 million ringgit (49.3 million dollars). The ruling convicts him of criminal breach of trust, money laundering and abuse of power related to the state investment fund 1MDB.

Last week, Goldman Sachs and the Malaysian government had reached an agreement regarding the alleged misuse of funds from 1MDB. The US Department of Justice has repatriated hundreds of millions of dollars to Malaysia after recovering assets - such as Picasso artwork and a luxury yacht - it said were purchased to launder money stolen from 1MDB.