EX- PRESIDENT SARKOZY CHARGED IN CRIMINAL PROBE

PARIS French prosecutors charged former president Nicolas Sarkozy with “criminal association” as part of an investigation into the financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, particularly its alleged ties to the government of then-libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Although Sarkozy had already been charged in 2018 with corruption and embezzling funds from Libya, the new charges marked a dramatic escalation — the most serious indictment a former head of state has faced in the history of France's Fifth Republic, the system of government established in 1958.

Sarkozy denied any wrongdoing.

“The French must know that I am innocent of what I'm accused of. ... I know the truth will triumph eventually,” he said in a statement Friday.