A Paris court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy, ruling that he accepted millions of euros in illicit financing from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi for his successful 2007 presidential campaign.

However, Sarkozy was acquitted of other charges, including passive corruption and direct illegal campaign financing.

The former president, who has consistently denied all allegations, was accused of striking a deal with Gaddafi in 2005 — while serving as France’s interior minister — to secure campaign funds in exchange for supporting Libya’s then-isolated regime on the international stage.

According to the court, in return for the money, Gaddafi’s government sought diplomatic, legal, and business favors, with the understanding that Sarkozy would help rehabilitate the Libyan leader’s tarnished global image.

Gaddafi, whose authoritarian 41-year rule was marked by severe human rights abuses, had been internationally ostracized over his regime’s links to terrorism, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy’s associates met with members of Gaddafi’s regime in 2005. Shortly after becoming president in 2007, Sarkozy hosted the Libyan leader for a high-profile state visit in Paris, where Gaddafi pitched his Bedouin tent in gardens near the Élysée Palace. Sarkozy became the first Western leader to welcome Gaddafi on an official visit since the 1980s, when Libya was blacklisted as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The 70-year-old Sarkozy has been on trial since January, facing charges of concealing embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, and criminal conspiracy to commit a crime.

This marks the most significant corruption trial of Sarkozy’s career. He has already been convicted in two separate cases — one for corruption and influence-peddling in an attempt to secure favorable treatment from a judge, and another for concealing excessive illegal spending during his failed 2012 re-election campaign against Socialist candidate François Hollande.

Sarkozy has appealed both previous convictions.