EditPresident Radev urges France to free Sarkozy, citing his role in liberating the Bulgarian nurses
Former Bulgarian presidents Petar Stoyanov and Georgi Parvanov, as well as numerous ex-ministers and public figures made similar appeals
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has publicly called for the release of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is currently serving a prison sentence for corruption.
Radev’s appeal came during a ceremony on 7 November 2025, in which he awarded Britain’s former Ambassador to Libya (2002–2006), Sir Anthony Layden, the Presidential Badge of Honour for his pivotal role in securing the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor imprisoned in Libya in 1999.
Seizing the solemn occasion, President Radev paid tribute to Sarkozy’s personal intervention in the same case: “Allow me to use this moment to honour the extraordinary empathy shown by a French statesman – who was then President of France – and his wife, who spared no effort to free our medics. Today he is behind bars and deserves the same support and solidarity that would truly express our gratitude.”
Indeed, when on 24 July 2007, the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor, freshly liberated after eight years in Libyan prison, landed in Sofia aboard an official French presidential aircraft, they were accompanied by Cécilia Sarkozy, then-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Radev explicitly endorsed earlier appeals by former Bulgarian presidents Petar Stoyanov and Georgi Parvanov, as well as numerous ex-ministers and public figures, and extended his plea to the authorities in Paris: “I join them in urging the release of President Sarkozy.”
Sarkozy began serving a five-year sentence on 21 October at Paris’s La Santé prison after France’s highest court upheld his 2024 conviction for accepting illegal campaign funds from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi during the 2007 French presidential election.
The ruling convicted Sarkozy of entering into a corrupt pact with Gaddafi’s regime – via aides – for potential illegal campaign funds in exchange for political favors, though it found insufficient evidence that any money actually reached his campaign or that he personally benefited.
The former French leader has two prior convictions: in 2021 for attempting to bribe a judge in exchange for confidential information about the same Libyan-funding probe (a case that made him the first former French president to wear an electronic ankle bracelet), and in 2022 for exceeding legal spending limits during his failed 2012 re-election campaign against François Hollande. Sarkozy has also been stripped of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest decoration.
Caption: President Rumen Radev during the ceremony on 7 November 2025. [BGNES]
Updated: November 8, 2025 - 09:09
