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French ex-Prime Minister François Fillon and his Welsh wife have gotten jail sentences in a fake tasks case.
The conservative political leader was found guilty of paying Penelope Fillon EUR1.156 m (₤ 1.06 m, $1.3 m) for work she never did as a parliamentary aide.
He was sentenced to 5 years in prison, three of them suspended. She was given a three-year suspended term.
The scandal destroyed his governmental bid in2017 Both have appealed, obstructing Fillon’s immediate detention.
The 66- year-old is the most senior French political figure to get a custodial sentence because the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
Coronavirus masks obscured the couple’s expressions as the verdicts read out.
What happened in court?
Delivering the decision in a Paris court house, the administering judge said: “The payment was disproportionate to the work done. Mrs Fillon was worked with for a position that was without usage.”
She was condemned of complicity to embezzle and hide public funds.
Both were provided fines of EUR375,000($423,000). In addition, the couple were ordered to return more than EUR1m to the National Assembly, which used Penelope Fillon from 1998 to 2013.
Her husband was likewise prohibited from public workplace for 10 years.
The terms matched the prosecutors’ sentence demands.
Fillon swears to fight on
They have two big arguments. You or I may find it venal an MP paying his better half to do what she wou